The Rockey laboratory focuses on two major areas. First, the lab investigates the pathogenesis of wound healing, using the liver as a model. In the canonical model, injury leads to activation of effector cells, which then carry out the fibrogenic response, ultimately leading to the clinical disease known as cirrhosis. The classic effector cell is known as the hepatic stellate cell. The work has shed new light not only on the cell biology of effector cells in this process, but also on important molecular pathways important in wound healing.

Secondly, the lab has strived to understand the cell and molecular vascular response of the liver to injury. We have demonstrated that a key player, the perisinusoidal hepatic stellate cell, exhibits a contractile phenotype. As such, these cells function as liver specific pericytes that regulate sinusoidal blood flow. Further, following liver injury, stellate cells exhibit exaggerated contractility, constrict liver sinusoids, and contribute to increased intrahepatic vascular resistance typical of portal hypertension.