Jiang Chang earned his M.D. from Wuhan University School of Medicine in Wuhan, China, in 1986 and received his Ph.D. in physiology from Texas A&M University at College Station in 1998. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, from 1999-2002 and became an instructor there in 2002. In 2004, Dr. Chang was promoted to assistant professor. In 2005 he moved to the Institute of Biosciences and Technology and is an assistant professor in its Center for Molecular Development and Disease.

Research Interests of Dr. Jiang Chang

There is accumulating evidence to suggest the occurrence of apoptosis in human failing hearts. My research has been focused on the role of slow cell death in heart failure. Apoptosis is associated with the activation of serial caspases in the proteolytic cascade after exposure to apoptotic signals. The implicit assumption has been that activation of the proteolytic cascade associated with caspase leads inexorably toward apoptosis, with eventual heart failure arising from myocyte loss.

Knowledge about molecular mechanisms leading to heart failure is still limited, but reduced gene activities and modest activation of caspase 3 are hallmarks of end-stage heart failure. My recent studies are evaluating Rho-associated kinase, ROCK-1, as a direct substrate of caspase 3 in failing human hearts. I explored the functional implication of enhanced ROCK-1 cleavage and found that the constitutively-active ROCK-1, the product of caspase 3 cleavage, was also sufficient by itself to induce caspase 3 activation and myocyte apoptosis. Futhermore, my studies have revealed a novel auto-regulatory loop for molecular induction of heart failure involving the nascent caspase 3 dependent cleavage of ROCK-1 leading to enhanced cyclical activation of caspase 3.

Representative Publications

L. Sun, J. Chang, S.R. Kirchhoff, A.A. Knowlton. Activation of HSF and selective increase in heat shock proteins by acute dexamethasone treatment. American Journal of Physiology 278:H1091-H1097; 2000.

J. Chang, A.A. Knowlton and J.S. Wasser. Expression of heat shock proteins in turtle and mammal hearts: relationship to anoxia tolerance. American Journal of Physiology 278:R209-R214; 2000.

J. Chang, A.A. Knowlton, F. Xu and J.S. Wasser. Activation of the heat shock response: relationship to energy metabolites A 31P NMR study in rat hearts. American Journal of Physiology (Heart Circ Physiol) 280:H426-H433; 2001.

J. Chang, J.S. Wasser, R.N. Cornelussen and A.A. Knowlton. Activation of heat-shock factor by stretch-activated channels in rat hearts. Circulation 104:209-14; 2001.

J. Chang, L. Wei, T. Otani, K.A. Youker, M.L. Entman and R.J. Schwartz. Inhibitory cardiac transcription factor, SRF-N, is generated by caspase3 cleavage in human heart failure and attenuated by ventricular unloading. Circulation 108:407-413; 2003.