Professor Christopher Huang
- Professor of Cell Physiology
About
Chris Huang was awarded a Florence Heale Scholarship to read Medicine and Physiology at The Queen's College, Oxford and completed his preregistration clinical appointments in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, The John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. He joined Gonville and Caius College as an MRC Scholar to complete a PhD in membrane biophysics, and then successively became an Assistant Lecturer and Lecturer in Physiology, Reader and finally the Professor of Cell Physiology at Cambridge, whilst being Fellow and Director of Medical Studies at Murray Edwards College. He is also independent nonexecutive director of Hutchison China Meditech and Hutchison Biofilm Solutions, and Manager of the Prince Philip Scholarship fund.
Chris Huang received the LEPRA Award (British Leprosy Relief Association), the Benefactor's (Queen's, Oxford) and Brian Johnson Prizes (Oxford Medical School), as well as the Rolleston (Oxford) and Gedge Prizes (Cambridge) for physiological research. He is/has been editor of the Journal of Physiology, the Monographs of the Physiological Society, Biological Reviews, BMC Physiology and Europace, and has been visiting professor to the Universities of Debrecen (Hungary) and Hong Kong, and Mount Sinai Medical School, New York, Adjunct Professor in Cardiology to Xi’an Jiaotong University (China) and President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society..
Research
Christopher Huang has contributed to understanding of the transduction and propagation of biological signaling events at the cellular and systems levels. This includes the initiation of striated muscle and osteoclast activity, mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmogenesis and cortical spreading depression in the central nervous system. This involved developing and integrating electrophysiological, spectrofluorimetric, confocal/electronmicroscope, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and mathematical modeling methods latterly in genetically modified murine systems. His current translational work on cardiac arrhythmogenesis similarly studies spreading physiological cellular and systems phenomena. It has separated the roles of after-depolarization phenomena, conduction velocity, restitution gradients, refractoriness and altered intracellular Ca2+homeostasis in ventricular arrhythmogenesis in hypokalaemic and genetically modified murine cardiac models for the Brugada, LQT3, LQT5, Scn3b-/-, catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardic and metabolic syndromes. These arrhythmic exemplars are being used to develop a systematic classification of arrhythmogenic mechanisms in these conditions. It is separating the roles of after-depolarization and refractory phenomena, restitution gradients and altered intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis and conduction velocity in initiation of ventricular arrhythmogenesis potentially leading to sudden cardiac death. Having characterized fundamental arrhythmic mechanisms in experimental platforms recapitulating specific ion channel disorders, He is now proceeding to examine arrhythmic events in translational models for common human disorders such as metabolic disease and cardiac failure.
CollaboratorsDr Andrew Grace, Pappworth Hospital
Dr Anthony Jackson, University of Cambridge
Dr James Fraser, University of Cambridge
Dr Ming Lei, University of Oxford
Prof Henggui Zhang, University of Manchester
Dr Kamalan Jeevaratnam, University of Surrey
Dr Andrew Thompson, University of Cambridge
Dr Dima Chirgadze, University of Cambridge
Dr Haseeb Valli, University of Cambridge
Dr Samantha Salvage, University of Cambridge
Dr Shiraz Ahmad, University of Cambridge
Ms Jisoo Jean, University of Cambridge
Mr Daniel Jafferji, University of Cambridge
Teaching and supervision
Part Ia Physiology: Physiology of muscle
Part II Physiology: Cellular physiology. Advanced electrophysiology classes in microelectrode recording, cable analysis and loose patch clamping.
Professorial Fellow and Director of Medical Studies, Murray Edwards College.
Textbooks
I have also written the following textbooks:
Glasby, M.A. & Huang, C.L-H. (Eds). (1995). Applied Physiology for Surgery and Critical Care. Butterworth-Heinneman. 756pp.
Zaidi, M., Adebanjo, O. A. & Huang, C. L-H. (1998). (Eds.). Molecular and cellular biology of bone. In: E. E. Bittar (Ed.): Advances in Organ Biology. Vols. 5A, B & C. (926 pp). JAI Press: Stanford, CT. & London.
Usher-Smith, J. A., Murrell, G.A.C., Ellis, H.E. & Huang, C.L.-H. (2010). Research in Medicine: Planning a project – writing a thesis. 3/e. (2/e 1999) (1/e: 1990). Cambridge University Press.
Keynes, R. D., Aidley. D. J. & Huang, C. L-H. (2011). Nerve and Muscle 4/e. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521519557]
Chambers, D., Huang, C. L-H & Matthews, G.D.K. (2014). Basic Physiology for Anaesthetists. Cambridge University Press.