Luis Garza
Department of Dermatology
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Room 204
Koch CRB II
1551 Orlelans Street
Baltimore, MD 21287
What if you could grow a new heart or liver if your first one failed? Our lab is interested if organogenesis can happen again in adults. We use skin as our model system and try to ask basic questions about fundamental biology with translational impact in medicine so that we use in vitro cell culture models, mouse models, and also human interventional clinical trials to gain understanding. We are currently focused on two areas. In the first, we are curious how normal noncoding endogenous dsRNA becomes unmasked and sensed by anti-viral sensors in the context of early wounding to prevent differentiation, maintain stem cells and promote regeneration/hair follicle appendage organogenesis. In the second, we are curious—if we can’t grow a new limb in people yet—can we at least reprogram the skin at the stump site of an amputee to be palmoplantar skin?
Wang G, Sweren E, Liu H, Wier E, Alphonse MP, Chen R, Islam N, Li A, Xue Y, Chen J, Chen Y, Lee S, Wang Y, Wang S, Archer NK, Andrews W, Kane MA, Dare E, Reddy SK, Hu Z, Grice EA, Miller LS, Garza LA. Bacteria induce skin regeneration via IL-1β signaling. Cell host & microbe. 2021. Epub 2021/04/03. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2021.03.003. PubMed PMID: 33798492.
Xue Y, Lyu C, Taylor A, Van Ee A, Kiemen A, Choi Y, Khavanian N, Henn D, Lee C, Hwang L, Wier E, Wang S, Lee S, Li A, Kirby C, Wang G, Wu PH, Wirtz D, Garza LA*, Reddy SK*. Mechanical tension mobilizes Lgr6(+) epidermal stem cells to drive skin growth (* Co-corresponding authors). Science advances. 2022;8(17):eabl8698. Epub 20220427. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abl8698. PubMed PMID: 35476447.
Wang G, Sweren E, Andrews W, Li Y, Chen J, Xue Y, Wier E, Alphonse MP, Luo L, Miao Y, Chen R, Zeng D, Lee S, Li A, Dare E, Kim D, Archer NK, Reddy SK, Resar L, Hu Z, Grice EA, Kane MA, Garza LA. Commensal microbiome promotes hair follicle regeneration by inducing keratinocyte HIF-1α signaling and glutamine metabolism. Science advances. 2023;9(1):eabo7555. Epub 20230104. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abo7555. PubMed PMID: 36598999.
Dongwon Kim, Ruosi Chen, Mary Sheu, Noori Kim, Sooah Kim, Nasif Islam, Eric M. Wier, Gaofeng Wang, Ang Li, Angela Park, Wooyang Son, Benjamin Evans, Victoria Yu, Vicky P. Prizmic, Eugene Oh, Zixiao Wang, Jianshi Yu, Weiliang Huang, Nathan K. Archer, Zhiqi Hu, Nashay Clemetson, Amanda M. Nelson, Anna Chien, Ginette A. Okoye, Lloyd S. Miller, Gabriel Ghiaur, Sewon Kang, Jace W. Jones, Maureen A. Kane & Luis A. Garza Noncoding dsRNA induces retinoic acid synthesis to stimulate hair follicle regeneration via TLR3. Nature Communications 2019 (10): 2811
Nelson AM, Loy DE, Lawson JA, Katseff AS, Fitzgerald GA, Garza LA. Prostaglandin D2 Inhibits Wound-Induced Hair Follicle Neogenesis through the Receptor, Gpr44. J Invest Dermatol. 2013;133(4):881-9. PMCID: PMC3593761.
Vandiver AR, Irizarry RA, Hansen KD, Garza LA, Runarsson A, Li X, et al. Age and sun exposure-related widespread genomic blocks of hypomethylation in nonmalignant skin. Genome Biol. 2015;16(1):80. doi: 10.1186/s13059-015-0644-y. PubMed PMID: 25886480.
Nelson AM, Reddy SK, Ratliff TS, Hossain MZ, Katseff AS, Zhu AS, Chang E, Resnik SR, Page C, Kim D, Whittam AJ, Miller LS, Garza LA. dsRNA Released by Tissue Damage Activates TLR3 to Drive Skin Regeneration. Cell Stem Cell. 2015;17(2):139-51. Epub 2015/08/09. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2015.07.008. PubMed PMID: 26253200; PubMed Central PMCID: PMCPMC4529957.
Kim D, Hossain MZ, Nieves A, Gu L, Ratliff TS, Mi Oh S, Park A, Han S, Yang NB, Qi J, Taube JM, Kang S, Garza LA. To Control Site-Specific Skin Gene Expression, Autocrine Mimics Paracrine Canonical Wnt Signaling and Is Activated Ectopically in Skin Disease. Am J Pathol. 2016;186(5):1140-50. Epub 2016/04/24. doi: 10.1016/j.ajpath.2015.12.030. PubMed PMID: 27105735.
Zhu AS, Li A, Ratliff TS, Melsom M, Garza LA. After Skin Wounding, Noncoding dsRNA Coordinates Prostaglandins and Wnts to Promote Regeneration. J Invest Dermatol. 2017;137(7):1562-8. Epub 2017/04/11. doi: 10.1016/j.jid.2017.03.023. PubMed PMID: 28392344; PubMed Central PMCID: PMCPMC5483387.
Zhou R, Wang G, Kim D, Kim S, Islam N, Chen R, Wang Z, Li A, McCarthy EF, Li L, Hu Z, Garza LA.dsRNA Sensing Induces Loss of Cell Identity. J Invest Dermatol. 2019 Jan;139(1):91-99. doi: 10.1016/j.jid.2018.07.021. Epub 2018 Aug 16.