Emala Lab
Principal Investigator
The Emala lab of lung biology and signal transduction studies airway and vascular biology using cells, ex vivo tissues from animals and humans and in vivo animal models of lung resistance. There is an interest in G-protein-coupled receptor signaling and ion channel physiology, particularly of signaling that modulates airway smooth muscle calcium levels and oscillations which ultimately control airway smooth muscle tone. The effect of anesthetics and GABAA receptor ligands on peripheral GABAA receptors in the lung, vasculature, and immune cells is a particular area of interest.
Lab Members
Yi Zhang, MD
- Senior Staff Associate
Dr. Zhang received her medical degree from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and was a researcher and surgeon at the Shanghai Research Institute of Microsurgery, Shanghai 6th people’s Hospital, Shanghai, China. She joined the Department of Medicine at the College of Medicine at the University of Florida, Gainesville, before joining the Department of Anesthesiology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. She conducts research focused on the functional contraction and relaxation of airway and vascular smooth muscle employing techniques of wire myography as well as several in vivo models of airway reactivity and blood pressure modulation utilizing techniques of microsurgery.
Dingbang Xu, PhD
- Senior Staff Associate
Dr. Xu received his PhD equivalent from the Department of Biology at Fudan University in China. He was a research scientist and director of the R&D laboratory at the Shanghai XIN XING Fermentation Products Inc. affiliated with the Shanghai light Industry Bureau and Fudan University. He was a visiting scientist at the Institute of Biochemical Technology and Microbiology at the Technical University of Vienna in Vienna, Austria before joining the research team of the Unit of Molecular Genetics for Industrial Microorganisms, Department of Genetics, Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands. He joined Columbia University in 1990 conducting research in the Columbia Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Center for Radiological Research and most recently in the Department of Anesthesiology where he investigates molecular biology questions related to signal transduction in airway smooth muscle, airway epithelium and immune cells.