I received my undergraduate education at Boston College in biochemistry in 1993. I completed my graduate studies on cell physiology and received my PhD degree in 1999 from Case Western Reserve University. Following my postdoctoral training at the Department of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University, I began a year-long externship at the Cleveland Clinic Proteomic facility in early 2002. In 2003, I joined the faculty at the Case Western Reserve University Department of Pediatrics as assistant professor. In 2011, I joined the faculty at the Emory University Department of Pediatrics as an associate professor and served as the associate director of Cystic Fibrosis Basic & Translational Research at Emory University.
In 2014, I was recruited by the CF program at Cincinnati Children’s, where I joined the faculty as associate professor of pediatrics within the UC College of Medicine in November. My research has been supported by the State of Ohio, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. My laboratory focuses on the differential regulation of Nrf2 signaling pathways in the inflammatory lung disease observed cystic fibrosis. My lab also has unique expertise in developing and characterizing DNA nanoparticles for nonviral gene delivery to the lung, liver, and brain. Finally, my lab has expertise in proteomic analyses for biomarker discovery and the examination of systems biology of various tissues. I am an inventor on five patents (2 USA, 2 EU, and 1 international) pertaining to DNA nanoparticles, and one provisional patent pertaining to modulation of inflammatory signaling. In the past 15 years, I have authored 33 manuscripts and book chapters, have an h-index of 19, and have been invited to present 42 talks on my work at national and international conferences and institutions.
BS: Biochemistry, Boston College, Boston, MA, 1993.
PhD: Cell Physiology, Physiology and Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 1999.
Postdoctoral Fellowship: Non-viral gene transfer, Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 2002.
Externship: Proteomic analysis of redox mediated inflammation in CF, Cell Biology, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, 2003.
Rare Lung Diseases
Cystic fibrosis; redox mediated inflammatory signaling; nonviral gene transfer to the lung; biomarkers of disease severity and response to therapy.
Bone Marrow Transplantation and Immune Deficiency
Clinically-approved CFTR modulators rescue Nrf2 dysfunction in cystic fibrosis airway epithelia. The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2019; 129:3448-3463.
Interaction with CREB binding protein modulates the activities of Nrf2 and NF-κB in cystic fibrosis airway epithelial cells. American Journal of Physiology: Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology. 2012; 302:L1221-L1231.
Genetic variation and clinical heterogeneity in cystic fibrosis. Annual Review of Pathology: Mechanisms of Disease. 2012; 7:267-282.
DNA nanoparticles: detection of long-term transgene activity in brain using bioluminescence imaging. Molecular imaging : official journal of the Society for Molecular Imaging. 2011; 10:327-339.
Nucleolin-mediated cellular trafficking of DNA nanoparticle is lipid raft and microtubule dependent and can be modulated by glucocorticoid. Molecular Therapy. 2011; 19:93-102.
Acid-degradable cationic methacrylamide polymerized in the presence of plasmid DNA as tunable non-viral gene carrier. Biomaterials. 2008; 29:3872-3881.
Transfection of airway epithelium by stable PEGylated poly-L-lysine DNA nanoparticles in vivo. Molecular Therapy. 2003; 8:936-947.
Assem G. Ziady, PhD, Rhonda D. Szczesniak, PhD ...5/17/2021