Joan M. Taylor

Joan M. Taylor, PhD, serves as Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Pathology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, where she leads investigations into intracellular signaling mechanisms governing cardiovascular and musculoskeletal development and disease.

Her research program centers on:

• Regulation of vessel development (Arteriogenesis) and vessel tone (Hypertension)
• Pathogenesis of cardiac disease including myocardial infarction
• Skeletal muscle formation and degeneration in muscular dystrophies

The Taylor Lab specializes in characterizing focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and its binding partners like FRNK within integrin-dependent signaling pathways. Using transgenic mouse models with tissue-specific FAK/FRNK manipulation, surgical injury models (aortic banding, coronary ligation, carotid injury), and real-time cell tracking, the lab has demonstrated FAK's critical role in vascular development and identified FRNK as an endogenous regulator of smooth muscle maturation. Key discoveries include FAK's necessity for coronary vascular development and FRNK's buffering of FAK signaling to prevent pathological responses.

Methodologically, the lab integrates:

• Primary cell cultures of smooth muscle cells, cardiomyocytes, and myoblasts
• Mouse genetics with Cre-lox systems for cardiac/vascular-specific gene expression
• Xenopus laevis models in collaboration with Frank Conlon’s lab

Current work focuses on FAK-binding partners (leupaxin, GRAF) that regulate smooth muscle chemotaxis and skeletal muscle maintenance, with translational implications for congenital disorders like DiGeorge syndrome, Tetralogy of Fallot, and adult-onset vascular diseases.