I am interested in understanding the injury-repair process and immune responses involved in respiratory diseases mainly, acute lung injury, ARDS, pneumonia, and pulmonary fibrosis. Research findings from our lab highlighted the importance of tripartite motif family protein (TRIM) 72 in innate immunity of the lung. Also, we demonstrated that TRIM72 improves lung cellular structure to help the repair of wounds in acute lung injury and ARDS. Another finding using a mouse model indicated that inhaled recombinant TRIM72 accumulates in the injured lung and protects the lung tissues from ventilator injury the mechanisms of which include improving cell resilience to membrane wounding, localizing to injured membrane and augmenting membrane repair.
Another key research focus is to examine the role of the endocannabinoid system in regulating lung immunity and inflammation. Currently, we are working to explore the role of cannabinoid receptor-2 (CB2R) as a potent regulator of immune responses in pneumonia and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP).
