Hanjun Wang, M.D., University of Nebraska Medical Center assistant professor of anesthesiology, is the 2017 winner of the Joseph P. and Harriet K. Gilmore Distinguished New Investigator Award. The award is bestowed for outstanding research contributions by young UNMC faculty.
Dr. Wang, who came to UNMC from Jiangsu, China, was honored for his study of sensory-nerve afferents — the signals sent toward the central nervous system — and their role in cardiovascular function, including in disease states.
"Dr. Wang is carving out a significant national reputation in the area of neural control of cardiovascular function," said Irving Zucker, Ph.D., professor and chair of the UNMC Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology.
In other words, during chronic heart failure, afferent sensory nerves send out a distress signal. The brain then answers with an emergency response, thus making the already-injured heart work even harder.
Dr. Wang theorized that blocking the afferent sensory nerve endings, through drug treatment, would let the heart rest, instead — a "hibernation strategy," that would allow a patient to live longer while waiting for a transplant.
His work won two large National Institutes of Health grants in a year, among other impressive funding awards.
But most important, Dr. Wang appreciates having found a home in the department of anesthesiology. There, he and clinicians work together, he said, to "finish the mission" and bring better treatment to patients.
The honor is named for the late Joseph Gilmore, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the UNMC Department of Physiology and Biophysics from 1970 to 1987, and his late wife, Harriet. Dr. Gilmore was a native of New York.
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