Basic Research

Research undertaken in the UC Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine combines’ talent, creativity and resources, to understand the causes of disease and develop treatments for infectious diseases, diabetes, obesity and lipid disorders, cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

Researchers of the department, along with industry and community partners, collaborate to bring forth cutting-edge research that leads to discovery of novel technologies and therapeutics for treating a society afflicted with these diseases.

To inquire into specific laboratories and their goals, please refer to each research faculty’s biography.

Overview

The Department has a highly active basic research program consisting of about 10 principal investigators. Their research interests lie in three major areas.

Lipid Metabolism

The Lipid Metabolism group studies a broad range of mechanisms related to lipoprotein biology, lipid absorption, vascular biology, fetal lipid metabolism, neural control of food intake, and inflammation.

These investigators are active members of the Metabolic Diseases Research Center and use a spectrum of technologies from physical/structural biology, molecular biology, cell biology and animal physiology to target chronic metabolic disease states including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular and fatty liver diseases, chronic inflammation, and the interface between lipid metabolism and infectious disease.

The group also houses a Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center, a national resource for characterizing mouse models related to diabetes. These investigators are well funded and internationally regarded for their work.

Lipid Metabolism investigators:

• W. Sean Davidson The Davidson Lab
• David Hui
• Min Liu
• Laura Woollett
• Patrick Tso

Regenerative Medicine

The Regenerative Medicine group contains multi-disciplinary investigators specializing in cardiac regeneration and cell based therapies for repairing the heart after myocardial infarction. They investigate progenitor/stem cell biology relevant to pluripotency, cell differentiation, proliferation, survival, gene therapy, tissue engineering, and explore the biological mechanisms involved in the process of reprogramming cells.

Regenerative Medicine investigators:

• Yigang Wang
• Meifeng Xu
• Jialiang Liang

Immunology and Infectious Disease

The Immunology & Infectious disease group is focused on understanding the inner working of the immune system: how it protects us from pathogens, and how and why diseases develop when the immune system malfunctions.  In addition, the group seeks to understand infectious disease from the microbial perspective: identifying the mechanisms used by a pathogen to survive the stress of growing in the host environment. 

Immunology and Infectious Disease investigators:

• Nives Zimmermann and The Zimmermann Lab
• David Askew