Dr. Tang has published many peer-reviewed articles in high profile journals, received substantial National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant support, contributed actively to the teaching of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, served on several university committees and reviewed many manuscripts for leading journals.
Dr. Tang’s primary research interest has been in the molecular mechanisms of general anesthesia, a century-long medical practice that is undefined functionally at the molecular and cellular level. Her investigations have focused on the molecular nature of general anesthetic interaction with transmembrane (TM) channel proteins and model peptides. She has combined the use of various biophysical approaches, notably the state-of-the-art high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, circular dichroism (CD), and molecular dynamics simulations, to elucidate general anesthetic effects on the structures and dynamics of TM channels.
Dr. Tang has published 40 peer-reviewed original papers, of which 28 are from the work done at the University of Pittsburgh after she became a faculty member. In addition, she has published more than 60 peer-reviewed abstracts in meeting proceedings and society journals (e.g., Anesthesiology, Biophysical Journal) since 1993.
She has spoken at the Association of University Anesthesiologists meeting, the International Conference on Molecular and Basic Mechanisms of Anesthesia and an international workshop on anesthetic and alcohol mechanisms.
Dr. Tang has served as a reviewer for numerous journals, including Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, Molecular Pharmacology, and Biophysical Journal.
Dr. Tang received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and has done post-doctoral work at the University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Science and Technology of China.