Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine Dr. Jang is a Penn Medicine physician.
Description of Research Expertise
"Abnormal Mitochondrial Function in Acute Care Illness in a Translational Approach from Bench to Bedside."
We are interested in studying the interaction of mitochondrial function in the area of acute care that includes sepsis and acute poisoning. We are currently taking a translational approach studying the mitochondria at a cell-based level, to various animal models, all the way to the clinical setting actively enrolling patients with these acute medical conditions with the goal to develop better prognostic measures with the potential for mitochondrial-directed therapy.
Our lab has the latest models of the O2k-FluoRespirometer (O2k-Series H), Western blotting, confocal microscopy to study mitochondrial function in both in vitro and in vivo models with a focus on mitochondrial-directed therapies using substrate prodrugs. Relevant in vivo platforms include zebrafish, murine and porcine models of acute critical care illnesses that also combine state of the art physiological monitoring such as PV loop catheters providing realtime physiological data to be linked with cellular function. Our other interests also utilize the use of blood cells as proxy of organ cellular function as a type of biomarker which may provide prognostic function and allow clinicians to better gauge response to therapy.
Combining these elements we aim to better understand the complex interactions of both bioenergetics in issues of acute care to better improve patient care and outcomes.
This work is supported by:
1. K08HL136858 (Jang, PI)
2. R03HL154232 (Jang, PI)
3. R21ES031243 (Jang, PI)
4. R56HL158696 (Jang, PI)