About Us

1) Regulation of Renal, Intestinal and Vascular Phosphate Transporters: Cellular mechanisms of transcriptional, translational, and post-translational regulation of NaPi cotransporters, including regulation by trafficking and lipid rafts.

2) Role of Lipids in Regulation of Cell Function: Role of cholesterol and glycosphingolipids in regulation of membrane microdomains, lipid rafts, cell signaling and NaPi cotransporters.

3) Pathogenesis and Prevention of Renal, Liver, and Cardiovascular Disease in Diabetes, Obesity, and Aging: Role of sterol regulatory element binding proteins (SREBP-1 and SREBP-2), liver X receptors (LXR-α and LXR-β), farnesoid X receptor (FXR), G protein coupled receptor TGR5, vitamin D receptor (VDR) and carbohydrate regulatory element binding protein (ChREBP) in regulation of renal lipid metabolism and pathogenesis of diabetes, obesity, and age related renal disease

4) Pathogenesis and Prevention of Atherosclerosis and Vascular Calcification in Diabetes and Chronic Kidney Disease: Role of nuclear receptors, lipid metabolism and NaPi transporters in modulation of atherosclerosis, vascular calcification, and cardiac disease.

5) High Resolution and Single Molecule Imaging in Live Cells: Application of multi photon excitation microscopy, total internal reflection microscopy, photo activation localization microscopy, scanning fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, fluorescence lifetime imaging, and nanometer-scale imaging by the modulation tracking method to determine spatial and temporal protein and lipid dynamics, protein-protein and protein- lipid interactions and trafficking in living cells

6) Combinatorial Microscopy Techniques for Imaging Metabolism, Fibrosis, Lipid Accumulation and Calcification in Tissues: Application of Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM), two-photon excitation (2PE) microscopy, second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy, third harmonic generation (THG) microscopy, Coherence Anti- Stokes Raman Scattering Microscopy (CARS) and Stimulated Raman Spectra (SRS) to image metabolism (NADH and FAD), elastin, fibrillary collagens, calcium deposits and lipid deposits in unstained tissues including the heart and aorta (atherosclerosis and calcification), liver, kidney and other tissues.