Ongoing Projects

1. Fumiaki Kojima: Role of mPGES-1 in arthritis.
We are investigating the effect of genetic deletion of mPGES-1 on initiating immune responses as well as clinical arthritis development in animal arthritis models.

2. Fumiaki Kojima: Role of Epac-Rap1 signaling in rheumatoid arthritis.
Exchange protein directly activated by cAMP (Epac) is a recently identified target for cAMP signaling. Epac signaling is independent of classical cAMP/PKA signaling. We are examining the role of Epac/Rap1 signaling in rheumatoid arthritis.

3. Lihua Yang: Role of fatty acids in Rheumatoid Arthritis.
We are studying the role of fatty acid in the profile of prostaglandin biosynthesis.

4. Manu Ponnappa: Role of mPGES-1 in wound healing.
We are currently investigating the role of mPGES-1 in the process of normal wound healing using mPGES-1 knockout mice.

5. Manu Ponnappa: Role of PPARγ in wound healing.
This study explores the contribution of PPARγ in wound healing. We are currently investigating the effects of Rosiglitazone (a PPARγ synthetic agonist) treatment on wound inflammation, re-epithelialization, collagen synthesis, angiogenesis and scarring.

6. Manu Ponnappa & Fumiaki Kojima: Effect of mPGES-1 genetic deletion in mouse embryonic fibroblasts. This study explores the consequences of mPGES-1 genetic deletion on prostaglandin biosynthesis and its subsequent effect on other downstream targets including PPARγ and iNOS.