Title/s: <p>Professor</p> <p>Molecular Pharmacology and Neuroscience</p> <p>Graduate Program Director, Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics</p> <p>Director of Pharmacovigilance Programs</p>
Office #: CTRE 421
Email: wjones7@luc.edu WKJappts@luc.edu (for appointments only)
Dr. Jones' laboratory studies the molecular basis of cardiovascular disease and molecular interventions designed as therapeutic measures. Cardiovascular disease remains the number one cause of death in developed countries despite decades of research into the environmental and molecular causation.
Previous work in the lab has elucidated a gene network comprised of 238 genes activated or repressed by the transcription factor NF-?B. Interestingly, most of these genes are regulated by a set of only nine microRNAs (mRNAs). miRNAs are small non-coding RNA molecules that regulate gene products primarily at the post-transcriptional. This suggests that these nine miRNAs are important regulatory nodes and play important roles in this gene network. Interestingly, mRNAs can be manipulated by transfection with mimics (gain of function), and antagomirs (loss of function) and such an approach can be used to dissect the role of each miRNA in gene regulation, cardioprotection, and post-myocardial infarction ventricular function and remodeling. Some of the miRNAs may be, or may point towards key players in the genetic pathway that underlie cardioprotection and beneficial ventricular remodeling, and thus development of new therapeutic targets. We are also investigating the possibility that manipulation of these miRNA pathways can be used to extend the life, or modify the reparative properties of stem cells used in the heart after heart attack. RNA therapeutics are also under development, and being investigated as biomarkers. Lately we have shown that miRNAs carried in exosomes and released from stem cells are taken up and affect gene regulation in cardiac recipient cells, with potent effects upon myocardial infarction. We are currently investigating ways to engineer these exosomes as tools for discovery and as therapeutics..