Researcher Information

Austin J. Yang, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Department:
Anatomy and Neurobiology

UMGCC Research Program:
Molecular and Structural Biology Program

Education/Training:

College Degree:	Ph.D., University of California, Irvine B.S., National Taiwan University
Post Doctoral Degree:	University of California, Irvine

Contact Information:

Mailing Address:	Bressler Research Building Room 7-040 University of Maryland, Baltimore 655 W. Baltimore Street Baltimore, MD 21201
Email:	ayang@som.umaryland.edu
Phone:	410-328-7588

Research Interests:
The primary interest of my laboratory is to understand the molecular and biochemical events leading to pathological aging and the early development of cancer. Traditionally, single proteins have commonly been chosen to study a variety of biological problems, but proteins cannot function alone and their physiological and biochemical properties are completely dependent on their interactions with other molecules. As a result, my laboratory recently has decided to study the function and integration of the entire biochemical circuitry that modulates the progression of aging and cancer using a series of newly developed mass spectrometric and proteomic technologies to address the following areas:

1. Analyzing changes in protein expression of the whole proteome or in particular subcellular compartments during the initial stages of cancer and pathological aging.
2. Elucidating the protein-protein interaction pathways that are involved in altering cancer cell signaling and cellular aging.
3. Identifying the alteration of protein structure and post-translational modifications that lead to the dysregulation of signaling modules during the course of aging and early cancer development.

Publications:
Soreghan B, Thomas SN, Hsu J and Yang AJ. High throughput proteomic-based identification of oxidatively induced protein carbonylation in mouse brain. (2003) Pharmaceutical Research 20(11):1713-20.

Schiewe AJ, Margol L, SoreghanB, Thomas SN and Yang AJ.. Rapid Characterization of Amyloid-ß Side Chain Oxidation by Tandem Mass Spectrometry and the Scoring Algorithm for Spectral Analysis. (2004) Pharmaceutical Research 21 (7) 1094-1102.

Carter TL. Verdile G, Groth D., Bogush A, Thomas S, Shen P, Fraser PE, Mathews P, Nixon RA, Ehrlich ME, Kwok JB, St George-Hyslop P, Schofield P, Li Y, Yang, AJ, Martins RN and Gandy SE. Alzheimer Amyloid Precursor Aspartyl Proteinase Activity in CHAPSO Homogenates of Spodoptera frugiperda cells. (2004) Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders 18(4):261-3.

Thomas SN, Soreghan BA, Head E, and Yang AJ. Reduced expression of synaptic transmission modulator HNK-1/ Neural Cell Adhesion Molecule (NCAM) as a consequence of Aß -mediated oxidative stress: a proteomic approach. (2005) Journal of Neurochemistry 92(4):705-17.

Thomas SN., Soreghan B, Duff, K, and Yang, AJ. Proteomic and network component analysis of PS1/APP mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. (2005) Journal of Alzheimer's Disease 8(3)227-41.

Wan Y, Yang A and Chen T. PepHMM: A hidden Markov model based scoring function for mass spectrometry database search. (2006) Journal of Analytical Chemistry 78(2):432-7.

Cripps D, Thomas SN, and Davies P and Yang AJ. Alzheimer's-disease-specific conformation of hyperphosphorylated phf-tau Is polyubiquitinated through lys-48, lys-11, and lys-6 ubiquitin conjugation. (2006) Journal of Biological Chemistry 281 (16):10825-38.

Lesne S, Koh MT, Kotilinek L, Kayed R, Glabe CG, Yang A, Gallagher M, Ashe KH. A specific amyloid-beta protein assembly in the brain impairs memory. Nature. 2006 Mar 16;440(7082):352-7.

Thomas, SN., Lu B, Nikolskaya, T., Yuri N., and Yang AJ. MudPIT (Multidimensional Protein Identification Technology) for identification of post-translational protein modifications in complex biological mixtures. In Redox proteomics: from protein modifications to cellular dysfunction and diseases. (2006) Wiley Inter Science.