Jianhua Zhang
Position title: Senior Scientist
Email: jz2@medicine.wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 262-1704
- Organ System/Disease Focus:
- Stem cells, cardiogenesis, cardiac regeneration, heart disease
- Aligned Research Focus:
- Cardiac differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. Using hPSC as the model for human cardiac development, disease modeling and regeneration
Research Description:
My research interest include 1. Differentiation of hPSCs into cardiac lineages with the goal of advancing our understanding of human cardiogenesis and heart development. 2. Develop and optimize protocols in generation of hPSC-derived cardiac progenitors and cardiomyocytes for therapeutic applications of cardiac regeneration and remuscularization of the failing heart. 3. Cross-talk and interactions of hPSC-derived cardiac fibroblasts (hPSC-CFs) and cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs), and how hPSC-CF modulate hPSC-CM function. 4. Patient-specific iPSC-derived CMs offer a unique opportunity to model the disease in a dish. Inherited and acquired heart disease impacts different regions of the heart and exhibits chamber-specific pathology. My recent research focuses on FHF- and SHF- lineage differentiation to generate chamber-specific cardiomyocytes using patient-derived chamber-specific iPSC-CMs to investigate the disease mechanism and to develop personalized therapy.
Selected References:
1. Zhang J, Wilson GF, Soerens AG, Koonce CH, Yu J, Palecek SP, Thomson JA, Kamp TJ. Functional cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. Circ Res. 2009 Feb 27;104(4):e30-41. doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.108.192237. Epub 2009 Feb 12. PubMed PMID: 19213953; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2741334.
2. Zhang J, Klos M, Wilson GF, Herman AM, Lian X, Raval KK, Barron MR, Hou L, Soerens AG, Yu J, Palecek SP, Lyons GE, Thomson JA, Herron TJ, Jalife J, Kamp TJ. Extracellular matrix promotes highly efficient cardiac differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells: the matrix sandwich method. Circ Res. 2012 Oct 12;111(9):1125-36. doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.112.273144. Epub 2012 Aug 21. PubMed PMID: 22912385; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3482164.
3. Lian X, Zhang J, Azarin SM, Zhu K, Hazeltine LB, Bao X, Hsiao C, Kamp TJ, Palecek SP. Directed cardiomyocyte differentiation from human pluripotent stem cells by modulating Wnt/β-catenin signaling under fully defined conditions. Nat Protoc. 2013 Jan;8(1):162-75. doi: 10.1038/nprot.2012.150. Epub 2012 Dec 20. PubMed PMID: 23257984; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3612968.
4. Zhang J, Tao R, Campbell KF, Carvalho JL, Ruiz EC, Kim GC, Schmuck EG, Raval AN, da Rocha AM, Herron TJ, Jalife J, Thomson JA, Kamp TJ. Functional cardiac fibroblasts derived from human pluripotent stem cells via second heart field progenitors. Nat Commun. 2019 May 20;10(1):2238. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09831-5. PubMed PMID: 31110246; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6527555.
5. Zhang J, Gregorich ZR, Tao R, Kim GC, Lalit PA, Carvalho JL, Markandeya Y, Mosher DF, Palecek SP, Kamp TJ. Cardiac differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells using defined extracellular matrix proteins reveals essential role of fibronectin. Elife. 2022 Jun 27;11. doi: 10.7554/eLife.69028. PubMed PMID: 35758861; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9236614.