Research

My research interests are in the area of cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, heart failure, and type-2 diabetes. In recent years, my research mainly focuses on heart failure. Using in vivo rodent models in combination with in vitro techniques, we seek to understand the pathophysiological and molecular mechanisms involved in the development of Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction (HFrEF) and Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF). I am committed to improving my knowledge in the cardiovascular field and to develop new therapeutic strategies targeting on cardiovascular diseases.

In my capacity as Director of the Cardiovascular Center Rodent Surgery Core, I am committed to work with collaborators to expand beyond heart disease and explore new cardiovascular diseases, such as stroke and kidney diseases. I am skilled in rodent echocardiography measurement and rodent surgeries including radio-telemetry implantation, LAD ligation, TAC, brain microinjection, invasive hemodynamics measurements etc.

Publications

Please, find a complete list of the Xia lab publications here.

Surgery Core

Rodent Surgery Core

Director: Huijing Xia, PhD (hxia1@lsushc.edu)

The Rodent Surgery Core provides investigators access, services, consultation and training to support cardiovascular research, including State-of the-Art equipment for rodent cardiovascular function assessment, behavior tests, disease modeling and surgeries. While the central focus of the core is cardiovascular research, the techniques employed are often useful to investigators in neuroscience and other fields. The Core staff will work with you to assess your needs and provide scientific assistance.

Expertise

In vivo non-invasive and invasive physiological function assessment;

Ex vivo cardiovascular function analyses;

Rodent models of hypertension, heart failure (HFrEF & HFpEF) and Stroke (ischemic & hemorrhagic).

Major Equipment:

Rodent echocardiography units (Vevo F2 and Vevo 2100); Rodent treadmills; DSI radio telemetry blood pressure recording systems; Invasive hemodynamics systems (Millar & Transonic); Stereotaxic instruments; Rodent open field apparatus; Rodent Grip strength meter; Rodent Laser speckle imager for cortical blood flow measurement; Langendorff Isolated Heart Perfusion system; Ex vivo Vascular reactivity system; Optogenetic Devices.

 

Service

Physiological function assessment: Blood pressure recording; Echocardiography; Treadmill exercise capacity test; Invasive cardiac hemodynamics measurements; Behavior tests; In vivo neuroactivity measurement; Ex vivo vascular function test; Ex vivo heart function test.

Disease modeling: Heart Failure/cardiac injury models (TAC and AAC induced HFrEF, LAD ligation induced HFrEF, myocardial ischemia-reperfusion induced cardiac injury, mouse and rat HFpEF models); Hypertension (Ang-II infusion, DOCA-salt, genetic modified models); Stroke (Ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke).

Surgeries: DSI telemetry implantation; Trans-Aortic Constriction; Ascending-Aortic Constriction; Left anterior descending artery ligation/myocardial ischemia-reperfusion; Middle cerebral artery occlusion; Intracerebral hemorrhagic stroke induction; Brain microinjection; Cerebral spinal fluid collection; Invasive cardiac hemodynamics; Vascular catheterization.