Investigator, Asst Prof (M) Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Mass General Research Institute

Assistant Professor of Anaesthesia Harvard Medical School

carbon monoxide; heme; hemeproteins; hemoglobin; high throughput screening; nitric oxide; oxygen; red blood cells; sickle cell disease; small molecules

Research Areas

• Development of high throughput assays to evaluate the gas binding properties of hemoglobin and the shape of red blood cells
• Identification of small molecules that modulate gas binding affinity of hemoglobin and red blood cells
• Identification of small molecules that reduce the sickling of red blood cells

Description of Research

My research focuses on identification of small molecules that modulate gas binding properties or shape of red blood cells. Ongoing projects include:

1. Development of assays for high throughput screening of small molecules that modulate gas binding affinity of hemoglobin
2. Identification those small molecules from a compound library
3. Studies on how they modulate gas binding affinity of hemoglobin
4. Applications of gas binding modulators of hemoglobin for treating human disease
5. Development of small molecules that inhibit sickling of red blood cells

We identified some small molecules that increase oxygen affinity of hemoglobin and inhibit in vitro hypoxia-induced sickling of red blood cells in patients with sickle cell disease without hemolysis. These identified molecules have potentials for the treatment of patients with sickle cell disease.