Qiang Shi 

Staff Scientist I | Genetics and SNPRC
Phone: 210-258-9703

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Research Focus

My scientific career has been devoted to fundamental research directed at understanding the origin of vascular diseases and at developing cellular technologies that can contribute to the establishment of regenerative medicine capabilities. Our current focus is on vascular endothelium, a single-cell-thick lining of the cardiovascular system. The endothelium interacts actively with the circulating blood and the various tissues and organs of the body. Abnormal interactions of endothelial cells with blood components (e.g., red cells, platelets, leukocytes, lipoproteins), smooth muscle cells and pericytes, inflammatory cytokines, metabolites, and extracellular matrix are the origin of many vascular diseases and contribute to the pathogenesis of acute and chronic inflammation, thrombosis and embolism, vascular injury, angiogenesis, and atherosclerosis. Since 2002, I have been collaborating as a member of a research team in vascular biology under the leadership of Dr. VandeBerg.  I have established methods to isolate and culture various vascular cells including endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, and fibroblast cells from arteries; have characterized these cells by cellular and molecular approaches; and have conducted many functional analyses. Up to the present time, over four hundred baboon endothelial cells have been isolated and functionally characterized in my laboratory. In 2008, I was funded on a competitive grant application by the Voelcker Fund to investigate whether endothelial progenitor cells are mobilized from the bone marrow by experiments induction of ischemia in baboons. I found that mobilized progenitor cells are generally difficult to produce in the numbers of required for cell therapy, Therefore, I began using embryonic stem cells as an alternative source of cells for pre-clinical studies in regenerative medicine, the study was supported by a fund from Voelcker Fund. In a collaboration with Dr. Schatten and Dr. Simerly, who established embryonic stem cell lines from baboon and rhesus monkeys, we were able to generate putative angioblasts that potentially differentiate into endothelium. Our ultimate goals are to demonstrate the feasibility of using primate embryonic derived stem cells can be used to produce differentiated cells with therapeutic capacity, to optimize primate embryonic stem cells for pre-clinical research in regenerative medicine, to harvest functional derived cells in a sufficient number, and to develop in vivo primate models for implanting differentiated cells into injured tissues.

Genetic Regulation of Endothelial Inflammatory Responses in Baboons.
Rainwater DL, Shi Q, Mahaney MC, Hodara V, Vandeberg JL, Wang XL.
Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. In press, 2010
PubMed ID: 20508207

Molecular pathways mediating differential responses to lipopolysaccharide between human and baboon arterial endothelial cells.
Shi Q, Cox LA, Glenn J, Tejero ME, Hondara V, Vandeberg JL, Wang XL.
Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol. 37 (2): 178-184, 2010
PubMed ID: 19650795

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