Dr Jianmin Chen

Profile

Dr Jianmin Chen is a Lecturer in Inflammation and Cardiovascular Medicine and Versus Arthritis Career Development Fellow at the William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London. Jianmin attained a Doctor’s degree in Clinical Medicine from Sichuan University, China in 2012. She was awarded with a PhD scholarship for her doctoral studies in Cardiovascular Pharmacology at Queen Mary University of London from 2012 to 2016, focusing on pathophysiology and experimental treatments of sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction. She joined Professor Mauro Perretti’s group at the William Harvey Research Institute as a postdoctoral researcher in 2017. She applies her expertise of cardiovascular research to the fields of arthritis to investigate cardiac comorbidities faced by patients with rheumatoid arthritis. In 2022 she received her Versus Arthritis UK Career Development Fellowship. Her current research aims to investigate the mechanisms for cardiomyopathy in inflammatory arthritis and explore novel therapeutic strategies.

Awards and Honours

• Bülbring Award, British Pharmacology Society
• Career Development Fellowship, Versus Arthritis UK
• European New Investigator, European Shock Society
• WHRI New Investigator Award, William Harvey Research Institute
• William Harvey Medal & Best Oral Presentation, William Harvey Research Institute New Year Celebration
• Travel Awards, conferred by Thirty-Eighth Annual Conference on Shock, 16th Congress of the European Shock Society and International Federation of Shock Congress, respectively

Links to my other profiles

• Research Gate
• LinkedIn
• Loop

Research

Group members

Mr Ahmad Hjiej Andaloussi (PhD student); Mr Weifeng Bu (PhD student); Mr Thomas Dudley Wright (PhD student, 2^nd Supervisor); Dr Marilena Christoforou (Post-doctoral Fellow; PI).

Summary

Cardiovascular comorbidities contribute to around half of all deaths in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), with non-ischaemic heart failure being a major cause. RA patients are particularly susceptible to a type of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), which is accompanied by diastolic dysfunction. The causes of diastolic dysfunction in RA are unknown and current medications for RA have limited cardioprotective effects: the clinical unmet need for increased congestive heart failure (CHF) remains pressing. To address this unmet clinical need, we have identified a mouse model of arthritis, K/BxN F1 progeny, which recapitulates the specific diastolic dysfunction of RA patients; this is the first mouse model of inflammatory arthritis identified which shows diastolic dysfunction.

My research aims are to understand the pathophysiology of cardiac diastolic dysfunction in inflammatory arthritis and to develop novel therapeutics for this fatal side-effect of arthritis.

Ongoing projects include:

1. Identify whether cellular/molecular dysregulation contributes to the development of cardiac dysfunction by analysing immune cell infiltration, and changes in cardiac metabolism in mice with inflammatory arthritis.
2. Test the impact of both established classical anti-inflammatory and innovative pro-resolving therapeutic strategies on cardiac function and joint symptoms in mice with inflammatory arthritis.
3. Assess the translational potential of current research using samples and data obtained from RA patients.

Furthermore, I have expertise in modelling a range of both acute and chronic cardiovascular diseases in mice and rats, including inducing polymicrobial sepsis/sepsis-associated cardiac dysfunction by cecum ligation and perforation surgery in mice, heamorrhage shock in rats, myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury and heart failure in rats. I am also interested in studying the pathophysiology and exploring novel therapeutic treatments of these disease conditions.

Key Publications

Full list of publications

1. Jianmin Chen, et int., Mauro Perretti. Formyl peptide receptor type 2 (FPR2) deficiency in myeloid cells amplifies sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction. Journal of Innate Immunity. 2023 March; DOI: 10.1159/000530284.
2. Jianmin Chen*, Lucy V Norling*, et int., Mauro Perretti, Dianne Cooper. Annexin A1 attenuates cardiac diastolic dysfunction in mice with inflammatory arthritis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, PNAS. 2021 Sep; doi: 1073/pnas.2020385118.
3. Jianmin Chen, Lucy V Norling, Dianne Cooper. Cardiac Dysfunction in Rheumatoid Arthritis: The Role of Inflammation. Cells. 2021; doi:10.3390/cells10040881.
4. Jianmin Chen, et int., Christoph Thiemermann. RvE1 attenuates polymicrobial sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction and enhances bacterial clearance. Frontiers in Immunology, section Inflammation. 2020; doi:10.3389/fimmu.2020.02080.
5. Qadeer Aziz, Jianmin Chen, et int., Andrew Tinker. Vascular KATP Channels Protect from Cardiac Dysfunction and Preserve Cardiac Metabolism During Endotoxemia. Journal of Molecular Medicine, 2020; doi:10.1007/s00109-020-01946-3.
6. Jianmin Chen*, Alexander J.P. Hamers*, et int., Amrita Ahluwalia. Endogenously generated arachidonate-derived ligands for TRPV1 induce cardiac protection in sepsis. The FASEB Journal, 2018; doi:10.1096/fj.201701303R.
7. Sura Al Zoubi, Jianmin Chen, et int., Christoph Thiemermann. Linagliptin attenuates the cardiac dysfunction associated with experimental sepsis in mice with pre-existing type 2 diabetes by inhibiting NF-κB. Frontiers in Immunology, section Inflammation, 2018;9:2996. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2018.02996.
8. Jianmin Chen, et int., Christoph Thiemermann. IκB Kinase Inhibitor Attenuates Sepsis-Induced Cardiac Dysfunction in CKD. Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, JASN, 2017; 28(1):94-105. doi:10.1681/ASN.2015060670.
9. Jianmin Chen, et int., Christoph Thiemermann. Gender dimorphism of the cardiac dysfunction in murine sepsis: Signalling mechanisms and age- dependency. PLoS ONE, 2014, 9(6): e10063.
10. Yuping Xie*, Jianmin Chen*, et int., Y. James Kang. Immunohistochemical detection of differentially localized up-regulation of lysyl oxidase and down-regulation of matrix metalloproteinase1 in rhesus monkey model of chronic myocardial infarction. Experimental Biology and Medicine, 2012, 237(7): 853-9.

Collaborators

Internal 

Prof Mauro Perretti (Sponsor of VA Fellowship, WHRI); Dr Dianne Cooper (Sponsor of VA Fellowship, WHRI); Dr Lucy Norling (WHRI); Prof Federica Marelli-Berg (WHRI); Dr Nay Aung (Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI); Dr Dunja Aksentijevic (WHRI);Dr Myles Lewis (WHRI); Prof Steffen Peterson (WHRI); Dr Trinidad Montero-Melendez (WHRI); Prof Christoph Thiemermann (WHRI)

International Collaborators

Dr Andreas Margraf (Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich)

Industry Collaborators

Dr John Lupisella (Bristol-Myers Squibb); Dr Ricardo Garcia (Bristol-Myers Squibb); Dr Thomas Jonassen (ResoTher Pharma); Dr Samra Sanni (ResoTher Pharma)

Versus Arthritis Research Partner

Mr Robin Brittain

News

• PhD studentship grant awarded to Dr Jianmin Chen. How can we treat heart problems in patients with rheumatoid arthritis? (Heart Research UK), May 2023
• Jianmin Chen, The female researchers of Heart Research UK (Heart Research UK), March 2023
• New model could improve treatment of rheumatoid arthritis patients with cardiac disease (Queen Mary University of London), September 2021

Teaching

• MRes research project supervisor and lecturer: MRes Cardiac and Vascular Medicine - Inflammation: Cellular and Vascular Aspects (WHRM922)
• Bsc research project supervisor: BSc Pharmacology - Research Project in Pharmacology (BMD670)
• PBL tutor (MBBS)
• OSCE examiner (MBBS)

Disclosures

No disclosures.