Research theme Vascular damage

Vascular damage About theme

The theme is centered around three lines of research:

• Pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and its consequences
• Pathogenesis of genetic, metabolic and endocrine causes of vascular damage
• Personalized diagnostics and treatments of atherosclerosis and its consequences

  Objectives

• We aim to unravel how traditional and novel cardiovascular risk factors induce a pro-atherogenic phenotype of these cells by performing in vitro and ex vivo studies on cells of the innate immune system.
• We plan to develop and improve noninvasive vascular imaging techniques to detect vulnerable plaques and vascular inflammation.
• We aim to develop and implement techniques to study inflammation and its impact on atherosclerosis in humans in vivo.
• Using animal models, we aim to develop and validate biomarkers to study the impact of inflammation on progression of atherosclerosis in humans in vivo.
• We aim to investigate the role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of the metabolic syndrome.
• We plan to study the mechanisms by which inactivity results in cardiovascular injury and evaluate interventions to prevent or reverse this.
• We want to improve diagnosis and treatment of the adrenal causes of hypertension and to explore mechanisms of vascular injury specifically related to these disorders.
• We aim to explore the role of gender differences in atherogenesis.
• We will study promising strategies to prevent ischemia-reperfusion injury, such as pharmacological and ischemic conditioning.
• We will study how current cardiovascular guidelines can be implemented most effectively.