Lung Inflammation in Health and Disease, Volume I

Respiratory diseases are leading causes of death and disability globally, with about 65 million people suffering from COPD, and 334 million from asthma, the most common chronic disease. Each year, tens of millions of people develop and can die from from respiratory infections such as pneumonia and TB. Systemic inflammation may induce and exacerbate local inflammatory diseases in the lungs, and local inflammation can in turn cause systemic inflammation. There is increasing evidence of the coexistence of systemic and local inflammation in patients suffering from asthma, COPD, and other lung diseases, and the co-morbidity of two or more local inflammatory diseases often occurs. For example, rheumatoid arthritis frequently occurs together with, and promotes the development of, pulmonary hypertension. This co-morbidity significantly impacts quality of life, and can result in death for those affected.

Dr. Yong-Xiao Wang is a Full Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Albany Medical College, Albany, New York, USA. He received his M.D. at the Wannan Medical College (China), Ph.D. at the Fourth Military Medical University (China), and postdoctoral training at the Technical University of Munich (Germany) as well as the University of Pennsylvania (USA). Dr. Wang's primary research interests have focused on basic, translational, and drug discovery research concerning cardiac arrhythmias and hypertrophy, pulmonary hypertension, asthma, and diabetes for over 30 years. In particular, he has had extensive research experience in the studies of the molecular geneses, regulatory mechanisms, network pathways, physiological functions, and the critical roles of calcium, redox, inflammatory, and other signaling in the aforementioned illnesses. Dr. Wang has been the corresponding author, first author, and key contributor in numerous publications in highly peer-reviewed journals including Nat Commun, Antioxid Redox Signal, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, Free Radic Biol Med, Cell Calcium, J Gen Physiol, J Biol Chem, FASEB J, Nature, Circ Res, and more. He has been the editor of several academic books in the field including a recent one entitled 'Pulmonary Vasculature Redox Signaling in Health and Disease' that was published by Springer International Publishing AG in 2017. Dr. Wang has been the principal investigator on multiple research grants and awards from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, and other agencies. He has collaborated with numerous well-known scientists, served on various grant review panels, been the Editor-In-Chief and Editorial Board Member for several scientific journals, and trained a number of scholars, some of whom have become well-known independent investigators in the field.