Cardiovascular & Lipid Disorders

Yaoliang TangYaoliang Tang MD, PH.D

Division of Cardiovascular Disease

Associate Professor of Medicine

  • Cardiovascular Research Center
  • 231 Albert Sabin Way, CVC 3939, ML0542
  • Cincinnati OH 45267
  • (513)558-3091
  • yaoliang.tang@uc.edu

Research Summary & Proposed Projects

We propose to replenish the stem cell pool for heart repair, by isolating and expanding cardiac stem cells from heart in vitro, infusing them systemically back in vivo post myocardial infarction, and recruiting them to the ischemic myocardium using SDF-1?/CXCR4 signal pathway.

We propose to develop a practical and important role for microRNAs in human heart disease, and understand the miRNA control network in differentiation of stem cells to cardiomyocytes.

We propose to reprogram cells from adult human tissue like skin to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPs), which appear to have all the properties of embryonic stem cells. Their use could be tailored made for each patients. We will study these cells and see if they are appropriate for human use in heart diseases.

We are developing a novel strategy to repair older infarcted hearts with young endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs). We want to investigate whether myocardial ischemia in older hearts can be better solved by combining a cardiac specific, hypoxia-regulated SDF-1? vector system with young EPC transplantation.

Research Publications

Tang YL, Zhu W, Cheng M, Chen L, Zhang J, Sun T, Kishore R, Phillips MI, Losordo DW, Qin G, Hypoxic preconditioning enhances the benefit of cardiac progenitor cell therapy for treatment of myocardial infarction by inducing CXCR4 expression. Circ Res. 2009;104(10):1209-16.

Tang YL, Zhao Q, Zhang YC, Cheng L, Liu M, Shi J, Yang YZ, Pan C, Ge J, Phillips MI, Autologous mesenchymal stem cell transplantation induce VEGF and neovascularization in ischemic myocardium, Regul Pept. 2004 Jan 15;117(1):3-10.

Tang YL, Tang Y, Zhang YC, Qian K, Shen L, Phillips MI, Protection from ischemic heart injury by a vigilant heme oxygenase-1 plasmid system. Hypertension. 2004;43(4):746-51.

Tang YL, Tang Y, Zhang YC, Agarwal A, Kasahara H, Qian K, Shen L, Phillips MI, A hypoxia-inducible vigilant vector system for activating therapeutic genes in ischemia. Gene Ther. 2005;12(15):1163-70.

Tang YL, Tang Y, Zhang YC, Qian K, Shen L, Phillips MI. Improved graft mesenchymal stem cell survival in ischemic heart with a hypoxia-regulated heme oxygenase-1 vector. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2005;46(7):1339-50.

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