Ke Cheng

 

By

Title:

Professor

Office Information:

NCSU-CVM Research Building
RB158
1060 William Moore Rive
Raleigh, NC27607
NC State University
(919) 513-6157

Education:

Ph.D., Biological Engineering, University of Georgia B.S., Pharmaceutical Engineering, Zhejiang University

Email:

ke_cheng@ncsu.edu, ke_cheng@unc.edu

Lab Site:

https://chenglab.cvm.ncsu.edu/

Research and Publications:

 Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cell Theory
  Biomaterials, nanomedicines, and stem cells for cardiovascular and pulmonary regeneration; Exosomes and micro-RNAs, regenerative medicine.

Ke Cheng's laboratory studies regenerative medicine by using patient-derived stem cells, biomaterials, micro-RNAs and bioengineering approaches. Translational research is a major focus of the lab. Prior to the launch of Cheng Lab at North Carolina, Dr. Cheng directed the stem cell lab for multiple human trials, including the world's first clinical trial using cardiac stem cells to treat heart attach. Currently, we are testing the following strategies to treat cardiovascular diseases: 1) purified and more potent stem cell products derived from the natural mixture of cardiac stem cells; 2) biomaterials derived from patient's own tissues; 3) micro-RNAs involved in tissue regeneration; 4) nano theranostic agents that can augment endogenous repair; 5) novel mechanisms of cell extravasation, namely angiopellosis.

*Ph.D graduate student positions are available in Prof. Cheng's lab. Applicants are expected to conduct research projects in the area of stem cell therapy and biomaterials.

Hu S, Ogle B, Cheng K. Body Builder: from Synthetic Cells to Engineered Tissue, Current Opinion in Cell Biology 5: 37-42, 2018.

Vandergriff A, Huang K, Shen D, Hensley MT, Qian L, Caranasos TG, Cheng K. Targeting regenerative exosomes to myocardial infarction using cardiac homing peptide. Theranostics. 8(7):1869-1878, 2018 (Cover Image).

Tang J, Su T, Huang K, Dinh PU, Wang Z, Vandergriff AC, Hensley MT, Cores J, Allen T, Li TS, Sproul E, Mihalko E, Lobo LJ, Ruterbories L, Lynch A, Brown AC, Caranasos TG, Shen D, Stouffer GA, Gu Z, Zhang J, Cheng K. Targeted repair of heart injury by stem cells fused with platelet nanovesicles. Nature Biomedical Engineering. 2, 17–26, 2018.

Tang J, Cui X, Caranasos TC, Hensley MT, Vandergriff AC, Hartanto Y, Shen D, Zhang H, Zhang J, Cheng K. Heart repair using nanogel encapsulated cardiac stem cells in mice with myocardial infarction. ACS Nano. 2017 Sep 20. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.7b01008. [Epub ahead of print] (Editors' Choice).​

Luo L, Tang J, Nishi K, Yan C, Dinh PU, Cores J, Kudo T, Zhang J, Li TS, Cheng K. Fabrication of synthetic mesenchymal stem cells for hear repair. Circulation Research. 120:1768-1775, 2017. (Cover Image; Best Paper Award 2017).

Tang J, Shen D, Caranasos TG, Wang Z, Allen TA, Vandergriff A, Hensley MT, Dinh PU, Cores J, Li TS, ZhangJ, Kan Q, and Cheng K. Therapeutic microparticles functionalized with biomimetic cardiac stem cell membranes and secretome. Nature Communications. 8:13724, 2017.