Fundamental mechanisms of biological processes: stem cell/progenitor differentiation, tissue repair, immunity, and homeostasis
The long-term goal is to develop novel therapeutic strategies (herbs and gene delivery) and vaccines (e.g., attenuated bacterial strains). Another area of focus is to understand the role of base excision DNA repair (BER, OGG1) in lung injury: whether environmental toxins (heavy metals or cigarette smoking) induced genetic and epigenetic modifications and the underlying regulators (miRNAs) are associated with pathogenesis of lung degenerative diseases