Dr. Jun Yoshioka is Associate Professor of the Department of Molecular Cellular & Biomedical Sciences at CUNY School of Medicine. After completed his initial medical training, he started clinical research work in Japan. He then shifted his focus to basic research in physiology and molecular biology in 2001, starting a post-doctoral fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Yoshioka spent the majority of his career as a research scientist at Harvard Medical School where he served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine before coming to CUNY in 2017. His background in clinical cardiology combined with the expertise he has gained in the basic laboratory have allowed him to contribute fundamental insights into normal cardiac physiology and its dysregulation in the setting of metabolic disorders. Dr. Yoshioka is honored to be an Alan Lerner Award recipient in 2015 and a Watkins Discovery Award winner in 2016 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Ph.D., 2001. Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine (Japan)

M.D., 1994. Hyogo College of Medicine (Japan)

Dr. Yoshioka’ career has been dedicated to understanding disorders of cardiac function with the goal of developing novel therapies based upon fundamental insights into cellular and physiological mechanisms. He has been supervising innovative and meritorious research projects on cardiac metabolism and discovered that a previously obscure protein called TXNIP (“tex-nip”) controls mitochondrial redox balance and cellular glucose transport. His laboratory's current work focuses on diabetic cardiomyopathy, which is caused by diabetic stress’s effects on the cardiac system. Using modified mouse models that lacked the TXNIP gene, his group created a model of diabetes and found that the TXNIP-deficient mice had significantly better outcomes than the wild-type mice, including more stable blood sugar levels and fewer early signs of heart disease. He plans to continue expanding his investigations and examine the role TXNIP in other oxidative stress-related illnesses.

Wang BF, Yoshioka J. The Emerging Role of Thioredoxin-interacting Protein in Myocardial Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury. J Cardiovasc Pharmacol Ther 2017;22(3):219-229. PMID: 27807222.

Dotimas JR, Lee AW, Schmider AB, Carroll SH, Shah A, Bilen J, Elliott KR, Myers RB, Soberman RJ, Yoshioka J, Lee RT. Diabetes regulates fructose absorption through thioredoxin-interacting protein. Elife. 2016;5. pii: e18313. PMID: 27725089.

Myers RB, Fomovsky GM, Lee S, Tan M, Wang BF, Patwari P, Yoshioka J. Deletion of thioredoxin-interacting protein improves cardiac inotropic reserve in the streptozotocin-induced diabetic heart. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2016;310(11):H1748-59. PMID: 27037370.

Yoshioka J. Thioredoxin Reductase 2 (Txnrd2) Regulates Mitochondrial Integrity in the Progression of Age-Related Heart Failure. J Am Heart Assoc. 2015;4(7). PMID: 26199229.

Qiao S, Dennis M, Song X, Vadysirisack DD, Salunke D, Nash Z, Yang Z, Liesa M, Yoshioka J, Matsuzawa S, Shirihai OS, Lee RT, Reed JC, Ellisen LW. A REDD1/TXNIP pro-oxidant complex regulates ATG4B activity to control stress-induced autophagy and sustain exercise capacity. Nat Commun. 2015;6:7014. PMID: 25916556.

Yoshioka J. Thioredoxin superfamily and its effects on cardiac physiology and pathology. Compr Physiol. 2015;5(2):513-30. PMID: 25880503.

Myers RB, Yoshioka J. Regulating PPARd signaling as a potential therapeutic strategy for skeletal muscle disorders in heart failure. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2015;308(9):H967-9. PMID: 25770240.