Pioneering Heart Failure Research

The Hong Lab explores the heart’s microscopic architecture — how proteins like cBIN1 organize heart muscle cells, and how restoring them can rescue the failing heart.

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Revolutionizing Heart Failure Treatment

Heart failure develops when the microscopic architecture inside heart muscle cells breaks down. The Hong Lab studies how these tiny structures — called microdomains — keep each heartbeat organized, and works toward restoring them as a new way to treat heart failure.

About Hong Lab

Our Research

The Hong Lab focuses on how the heart’s microscopic architecture drives heart failure — studying cBIN1 and membrane microdomains to develop new biomarkers and gene therapies.

How the protein cBIN1 organizes the tiny membrane folds that keep every heartbeat in sync — and how their breakdown leads to heart failure.

Detecting cBIN1-containing microparticles in the blood to identify and track heart failure.

Restoring cBIN1 to rescue the failing heart, from preclinical models toward the FIGHT-HF clinical trial.

How chronic stress damages the heart’s microscopic architecture, and how protecting cBIN1 preserves cardiac function.

Featured Publications

Recent publications highlight groundbreaking findings on the genetic mechanisms of heart disease, novel therapeutic approaches for heart failure, and innovative strategies for improving cardiovascular health outcomes.

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In Mice Subjected to Chronic Stress, Exogenous cBIN1 Preserves Calcium-Handling Machinery and Cardiac Function _{— JACC: Basic to Translational Science, 2020}

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The ESCRT-III Pathway Facilitates Cardiomyocyte Release of cBIN1-Containing Microparticles _{— PLOS Biology, 2017}

Isoproterenol Promotes Rapid Ryanodine Receptor Movement to BIN1-Organized Dyads_{— Circulation, 2016}

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AAV9-cBIN1 Gene Therapy Reverses Heart Failure in a Large Animal Model _{— npj Regenerative Medicine, 2024}

Mentorship and Training

The Hong Lab trains PhD students and early-career scientists in cardiovascular research.
Bradley Richmond — PhD student; research on t-tubule microdomains and mitophagy; 2025–2026 Skaggs Graduate Research Fellowship
Patience Ofosuah — PhD student; research on cBIN1 delivery efficiency
Augie Wheeler — PhD student; research on GLUT4 colocalization with cBIN1 membranes
Jing Li, PhD — Associate Instructor at CVRTI; first author on the lab’s 2024 cBIN1 gene therapy paper
Dr. Hong teaches in the College of Pharmacy, where she was named an Outstanding Teacher (GEM award, November 2025). Her own training: MD from Peking University, PhD from the University of Michigan, postdoctoral training at UCSF with Dr. Robin Shaw, then Cedars-Sinai/UCLA before joining the University of Utah in 2020.

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Faculty

TingTing Hong, PhD

Assistant Professor

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