top of page
MEET OUR COLLABORATORS
The Center of Musculoskeletal Research has collaborated with multiple departments at Hopkins to actively contribute to multidisciplinary research and cultivate collaborative research environment at Hopkins.
Hanzhang Lu is an internationally recognized leader in physiological MRI. He has published over 240 peer-reviewed journal articles with an h-index of 66 and a total citation of >18,000. He is an associate editor of Frontiers in Neuroscience — Brain Imaging Methods, and he serves on the editorial boards of NeuroImage and NMR in Biomedicine. He has also been a guest editor of special issues on physiological MRI.
Dr. Lu’s research has been focused on the development of MRI techniques to understand brain physiology and their applications in brain diseases. He has previously developed novel MRI techniques to measure cerebral blood volume (CBV), brain oxygenation (OEF) and metabolism (CMRO2), cerebral blood flow (CBF), blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability, and cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), which has been widely cited and used in the field.
Dr. Jennifer Elisseeff is the Morton F. Goldberg Endowed Professor of ophthalmology and a professor orthopaedic surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She also holds appointments in the Johns Hopkins Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Her research focuses on tissue regeneration. Dr. Elisseeff is the Jules Stein Professor of Ophthalmology and director of the Translational Tissue Engineering Center.
Her team is engaged in engineering technologies to repair lost tissues. Specifically, she is examining hydrogels as a scaffold for tissue engineering and is working to develop an artificial cornea. In 2004, Dr. Elisseeff cofounded Cartilix Inc., a startup that translated adhesive and biomaterial technologies for treating orthopedic disease, acquired by Biomet Inc. in 2009. In 2009, she also founded Aegeria Soft Tissue and Tissue Repair, startups focused on soft tissue regeneration and wound healing.
Dr. Lakshmi Santhanam is an assistant professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Her research focuses on fundamental mechanisms of cardiovascular disease. Her particular interest is to further understand the role of nitric oxide mediated S-nitrosylation (a post-translational modification of proteins) on protein function and trafficking in the vasculature and how this leads to matrix remodeling and vascular stiffening.
Dr. Neeha Zaidi is a physician scientist and a medical oncologist, caring for patients with pancreatic and colorectal cancers.
Dr. Zaidi’s laboratory focuses on developing novel personalized immunotherapy approaches for the treatment and prevention of pancreatic cancer.
Peisong Gao, M.D., Ph.D. is currently Professor of Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He joined the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology of the Department of Medicine in 2005 after completing a three-year research postdoctoral fellowship in this division.
The Peisong Gao Lab's major focus is to understand the immunological and genetic regulation of allergic diseases. We have been involved in the identification of the genetic basis for atopic dermatitis and eczema herpeticum (ADEH) as part of the NIH Atopic Dermatitis and Vaccinia Network-Clinical Studies Consortium. Major projects in the Gao Lab include immunogenetic analysis of human response to allergen, identification of candidate genes for specific immune responsiveness to cockroach allergen, and epigenetics of food allergy (FA).
Dr. Warren Grayson
Dr. Warren L. Grayson is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research examines the underlying mechanisms that regulate tissue development and uses computational and experimental tools to help engineer complex functional tissue constructs for use in regenerative medicine. The director of the Johns Hopkins Laboratory for Craniofacial and Orthopaedic Tissue Engineering, Dr. Grayson also serves on the faculty of the Translational Tissue Engineering Center and Institute for NanoBioTechnology, both at Johns Hopkins.
The Grayson Lab for Craniofacial and Orthopaedic Tissue Engineering seeks to address the challenges associated with engineering functional craniofacial and orthopaedic constructs for use in therapeutic applications. They are developing innovative methods using stem cells to create patient-specific grafts with the necessary biological and mechanical characteristics to facilitate functional in vivo integration. The lab employs engineering techniques to design advanced bioreactors capable of maintaining cell viability in large tissue constructs. These bioreactors also enable precise control of the cellular microenvironment and can uniquely address fundamental questions about the application of biophysical cues to regulate stem cell differentiation.
Dr. Xinzhong Dong
Dr. Xinzhong Dong is an associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Dong has identified many genes specifically expressed in the pain-sensing neurons of the brain’s dorsal-root ganglia. He has published approximately 40 academic journal articles and was recognized as an early career scientist by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
​
Dr. Dong, trained in molecular neuroscience, has identified many genes specifically expressed in pain-sensing neurons in dorsal root ganglia. He is interested in studying the function of these genes in pain sensation by multiple approaches including molecular biology, mouse genetics, mouse behavior, and electrophysiology. Dr. Dong identified a nearly 50-member family of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCRs) called Mrgs. His team also isolated several neuropeptides – including FMRFamide, NPFF, and g2-MSH – that function as ligands for Mrgs. Some Mrg ligands have been implicated in regulating pain sensitivity.
.jpg)
Dr. Yun Guan is a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His multidisciplinary research focuses on mechanisms of chronic pain and developing better strategies and novel targets for treatment of pathological pain conditions.
The goal of Dr. Guan’s research is to fully understand and explain the peripheral, spinal and supraspinal mechanisms of chronic pain and develop better strategies and novel targets for treatment of pathological pain conditions. His multidisciplinary research uses electrophysiological, molecular biological, immunocytochemical and behavioral pharmacological approaches to study neurobiological mechanisms of pain and hyperalgesia after tissue or nerve injury.
Dr. Zhaozhu Qiu is an assistant professor in the Departments of Physiology and Neuroscience and the principal investigator for the Qiu Lab at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focuses on an important class of cell-membrane embedded proteins, called ion channels, which are essential gatekeepers that control the flow of ions and molecules in and out of cells. His lab discovered a long-sought protein, the proton-activated chloride channel (PAC), that could protect against the tissue-damaging effects of stroke, heart attack, cancer and inflammation and could provide a new drug target for potential therapies for stroke and other diseases.
The Qiu Lab employs a multidisciplinary approach including high-throughput functional genomics, electrophysiology, biochemistry and mouse genetics to discover novel ion channels and to elucidate their role in health and disease. Ion channels are pore-forming membrane proteins gating the flow of ions across the cell membrane. Among their many functions, ion channels regulate cell volume, control epithelial fluid secretion and generate the electrical impulses in our brains.
Dr. Wei is an assistant professor of Radiology and Radiological Science.
Dr. Wei's research focuses on the development and applications of MRI methodologies for evaluating various brain physiological parameters in preclinical disease models. He has developed and optimized the non-contrast-agent MRI techniques to measure the oxygen extraction fraction (OEF), cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO2), and blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability in small animals. To gain better insight into the dynamic brain physiology of small animals, he has optimized an hyphenated method (MRI-HPLC) for evaluating cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR).
bottom of page