Congenital Heart Disease Researcher Lianjie Miao Joins College's Pharmacology Faculty

Sept. 5 — The University of Houston College of Pharmacy recently welcomed Lianjie Miao, Ph.D., as a research assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Miao earned his Ph.D. degree from Nanchang University in China and studied at Albany Medical College in Albany, N.Y., as a visiting student, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship. During his Albany fellowship, Miao was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association for his research project, "Mechanisms of CDC42 mediated trabecular initiation and cardiomyocyte proliferation." Prior to his UHCOP faculty appointment, Miao served as a postdoctoral fellow at the college since 2020.

Miao’s research is focused on investigating the molecular and cellular mechanisms of cardiac morphogenesis and congenital heart diseases. He is currently studying the function and formation of the Tunneling Nanotube-Like microstructure (TNTL) between cardiomyocytes and endocardial cells in the heart during early cardiac morphogenesis, which is crucial for signal transduction and cardiac trabeculation. He is also investigating the heterogeneity of the pro-epicardium and the origin of pacemaker progenitor cells by single-cell sequencing and cell lineage tracing.

He has published research articles in such journals as Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences, Development, Scientific Reports, and the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. Miao also has two manuscripts in revision. He won the poster presentation award at the 2023 Weinstein Cardiovascular Development and Regeneration Conference as well as the 2022 and 2023 PPS Research Symposium Postdoctoral Oral Presentation Award.

Miao has served as a reviewer for such journals as Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy, Cell Proliferation, and the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, to name a few. Miao is a member of the American Heart Association and Society for Developmental Biology.