Marchuk Lab Members

Hao Tang Post-Doctoral Fellow 277 CARL Building Box 3175 DUMC Durham, N.C. 27710 Phone: 919.684.3439 Fax: 919.684.2790 Email: hao.tang@duke.edu

I received my Ph.D. from Duke University in the lab of Dr. Blanche Capel, Department of Cell Biology, where I studied germ line and somatic stem cells in the mouse gonad. In July 2008, I joined Dr. Douglas Marchuk’s laboratory to investigate genetic and cellular mechanisms of human heart disease as a post-doc.

Using a heart failure mouse model and genetic mapping, our laboratory has identified seven significant genetic loci modifying disease progression and outcome. Since I joined the laboratory, I have been involved in identifying the gene underlying one of these loci. We have shown that a novel cardiac-specific kinase (TNNI3K; cardiac troponin I-interacting kinase) is one of the modifier genes, and this work was recently published in PLoS Genetics.

The cardiac-restricted expression and the kinase activity of TNNI3K make it a strong therapeutic potential target for treatment of human heart disease. However, no cardiac protein has been established as a phosphorylation target of TNNI3K and its biological function remains unknown. I am currently focusing on elucidating the molecular mechanism of TNNI3K as a modifier of cardiomyopathy, especially its kinase activity.

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