Taixing Cui

Research

Areas of expertise

• Disease Models
• Human Disease Genetics
• Stem Cells

Research Summary

Our laboratory has a research interest in understanding the nature of cardiovascular adaptive responses as well as maladaptive remodeling and dysfunction in diverse pathological settings. We have focused on the intercellular and interorgan communications in cardiovascular adaptation and maladaptation. We take multi-disciplinary approaches to explore the underlying cellular and molecular atlases and to identify the novel therapeutic targets for cardiovascular disease.
There are four areas of technical strengths in our laboratory: 1) Conventional and inducible cardiovascular tissue-restricted genetic manipulation in vivo; 2) Genetic inducible fate mapping of endothelial cells, vascular smooth muscle cells, adventitial fibroblasts, and resident cardiovascular stem cells in vivo; 3) Cardiovascular physiology analyses in cell, organ and whole animal levels; 4) Conventional and high throughput analyses such as single cell or nuclear RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq or snRNA-seq) and Special Transcriptomics (ST) analyses in vitro and in vivo.
Four major research programs which are currently underway include:

To identify novel cellular sources and molecular switches of vascular lesion formation, repair, and regeneration
To identify novel regulators of cardiac protein quality control
To identify novel interorgan communications between the heart and adipose tissues
To identify novel energy transformations in cardiovascular mechanotransduction