UTHealth Expert List

Shervin Assassi, M.D.

• Associate Professor of Rheumatology at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth
• Sees patients at UT Physicians in the UT Professional Building clinic and the Harris County Hospital District's Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital.

Shervin Assassi, M.D., is available to discuss the genetic and clinical risk factors for various complications of scleroderma, specifically pulmonary fibrosis. He is also able to discuss the clinical and genetic factors behind occurrence of ankylosing spondylitis and spondyloarthritis in families.

Ziyin Li,

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
McGovern Medical School
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

My laboratory is mainly interested in understanding the molecular mechanism of mitosis and cytokinesis. We use Trypanosoma brucei, a unicellular eukaryote and the causative agent of human sleeping sickness, as a model to address the fundamental questions of how mitosis and cytokinesis are regulated and coordinated during cell division. The current focus is on the cell cycle regulatory pathways consisting of protein kinases such as Aurora B kinase, Polo-like kinase, and Tousled-like kinase, and spindle-associated motor proteins. Moreover, we are also interested in the role of ubiquitin-dependent and -independent proteolysis in various cell biological processes. ATP-dependent protease complexes are present in all three kingdoms of life where they ride the cell of mis-folded or damaged proteins and control the level of certain regulatory proteins. These proteases include the 26S proteasome in eukaryotes, Archaea, and Actinomycetales and the HslVU protease in eubacteria. The current focus is on three proteolytic pathways: the Cullin-RING ubiquitin ligase (CRL) and the anaphase-promoting complex/ cyclosome (APC/C) on cell cycle control and HslVU protease on mitochondrial DNA replication. We use a combination of genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, and proteomics to elucidate the molecular and cellular basis of cell division in trypanosomes, which hopefully could provide excellent drug targets for chemotherapy.

A tutorial in my laboratory would expose a student to a wide variety of molecular biological, genetic, biochemical, and cell biological techniques. For example, gene cloning and targeting, RNA interference, gene knockout and knock-in, Western blot, co-immunoprecipitation, tandem affinity protein purification, protein kinase assay, purification of recombinant proteins, immunofluorescence microscopy, and electron microscopy. 

PubMed

McGovern Medical School Faculty

Ziyin Li Lab

John Reveille, M.D.

• Director, Frank C. Arnett, M.D., Center for Autoimmunity and Immunobiology, UTHealth
• Professor, George S. Bruce, Jr. Professorship in Arthritis and Other Rheumatic Diseases, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth
• Linda and Ronny Finger Foundation Distinguished Chair in Neuroimmunologic Disorders, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth
• Director, Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunogenetics, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth
• Chief of Rheumatology, Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center

John D. Reveille, M.D., is an internationally-known expert in ankylosing spondylitis.  He can answer questions about ankylosing spondylitis, lupus, scleroderma and HIV-associated rheumatic diseases.

Shabnam Shalapour,

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Department of Cancer Biology

My general goal is to study the role of chronic inflammation and adaptive immunity in the control of tumor development and the response of various cancers to therapy. Furthermore, my group is interested in developing effective immunotherapeutic combination strategies, especially for cancers in which immune checkpoint inhibitors have not yet demonstrated significant efficacy.

Cancer development and its response to therapy are strongly influenced by innate and adaptive immunity, which can either promote or attenuate tumorigenesis, and also have opposing effects on therapeutic outcomes. Chronic inflammation promotes tumor development, progression, metastatic dissemination, as well as treatment resistance. Accumulation of genetic alterations and loss of normal cellular regulatory processes are associated with cancer development and malignant progression while causing expression of tumor-specific and tumor-associated antigens (neoantigens) that activate anti-tumor immune responses. Although signals that trigger acute inflammatory reactions stimulate dendritic cell maturation and antigen presentation, chronic inflammation can be immunosuppressive. This antagonism between inflammation and immunity can affect the outcome of both cancer treatment and response to pathogens (e.g. virus or bacteria).

Our central focus is to explore how obesity, alcohol and aging affect the epithelial, mesenchymal and immune cell metabolic reprogramming, thereby determine the balance between ongoing damage and repair mechanism, and regulate cancer development, particularly in liver and gastrointestinal tract. We aim to understand the underlying mechanism of how these factors regulate tumor development by affecting the immune system and supporting the induction of immunosuppressive microenvironment (Tumor extrinsic mechanism TME). Moreover, we will study how these factors influence the tissue homeostasis and stem cells fate and further support immunoescape mechanism by regulating pathways like the MHC-I antigen processing and presenting machinery (AgPPM) in cancer/stem cells (Cancer cell intrinsic mechanism). We hope that this information can be used to prevent cancer and develop new therapeutic approaches (see scheme).

Specific aims and projects:

1. Explore how aging and lifestyle choices (e.g. obesity, alcohol) affect the immune system and support liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) development and progression.
2. Study the regulation of gut-liver-brain axis by diet-induced dysbiosis.
3. Investigate the role of the host metabolism, microbiome and TME in shaping the humoral and cellular immunity focusing on IgA⁺ plasma cell and follicular helper T cell development.
4. Identify the role of B cells particularly IgA⁺ plasma cells in cancer and Alzheimer.
5. Determine the mechanism which regulates MHC AgPPM in cancer cells.
6. The role of metabolism in epigenetic regulation of Type II IFN signaling and MHC AgPPM.

PubMed

Yang Xia, M.D., Ph.D.

• Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth

Yang Xia, M.D., Ph.D., provided pre-clinical evidence suggesting that a potentially deadly pregnancy complication known as preeclampsia could be an autoimmune disease. Her research has appeared in major publications. Xia can answer questions on priapism and cardiovascular diseases as well.

Xiaodong Zhou, M.D.

• Associate Professor in the Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunogenetics at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth

Xiaodong Zhou, M.D., is researching the impact of silica and other environmental factors on the development of scleroderma. He is in the midst of 4-year study comparing scleroderma patients and healthy men and women. He can answer questions about systemic sclerosis and ankylosing spondylitis with particular emphasis on gene-environment interactions and complex genetic networks.