Soon Jun Hong

Professor Hong is an established interventional cardiologist. He is interested in the effects of transplanting adipose stem cells in ischemic heart disease models. Specifically, his laboratory is investigating on physiological changes and mechanisms of improvement in cardiac function after adipose stem cell transplantation through histological and molecular biological analyses. My current research projects include: 1) Xenogeneic transplantation of adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) after acute myocardial infarction, 2) the molecular mechanisms underlying differentiation of ASCs into endothelial or cardiac lineages, 3) signal pathways regulating the differentiation and proliferation of ASCs, and 4) cell based gene therapy to promote the potential of ASCs. Other research topic is also focused on the development of novel antiplatelet drugs for the treatment of acute coronary syndrome and discovering more effective derivatives than current antiplatelet drugs.