Introduction

Research Groups

Select Research Group Head Prof. Sir Tom Blundell Prof. Kevin Brindle Dr Bill Broadhurst Dr Guy Brown Dr Mark Carrington Prof. Paul Dupree Prof. Gerard Evan - Head of Dept Prof. Richard Farndale Dr Giorgio Favrin Dr Jenny Gallop Dr Nick Gay Dr Andrew Grace Dr Jules Griffin Dr Brian Hendrich Dr Andrew Hesketh Dr Robin Hesketh Dr Matt Higgins Dr Florian Hollfelder Dr Hee-Jeon Hong Prof. Chris Howe Dr Marko Hyvonen Prof. Steve Jackson Dr Tony Jackson Prof. Richard Jackson Prof. Ernest Laue Prof. Peter Leadlay Dr Kathryn Lilley Dr Karen Lipkow Dr Rick Livesey Prof. Ben Luisi Dr Sarah Lummis Dr Juan Mata Dr John McCafferty Prof. Jim Metcalfe Dr Masanori Mishima Dr Eric Miska Dr Tom Monie Dr Helen Mott Dr Natasha Murzina Dr Daniel Nietlispach Dr Darerca Owen Prof. Steve Oliver Dr Luca Pellegrini Dr Markus Ralser Dr Nick Robinson Prof. George Salmond Dr Deirdre Scadden Dr José Silva Prof. Austin Smith Prof. Chris Smith Dr Nancy Standart Prof. Dame Jean Thomas Dr Aviva Tolkovsky Dr Martin Welch Dr Joyce Wong Dr Nianshu Zhang

Service & Research Support Facilities

Select by Subject or Manager DNA Sequencing Facility . . . . . Mr John Lester _______________________________ Quantitative Proteomics . . . . . Dr Kathryn Lilley _______________________________ Proteomics Core Services . . . . . Dr Mike Deery _______________________________ Protein & Nucleic Acid Chemistry . . . . . Dr Len Packman _______________________________ Metabolomics . . . . . Dr Jules Griffin _______________________________ Baculovirus Facility . . . . . Dr Darerca Owen _______________________________ Biophysics Facility . . . . . Dr Katherine Stott _______________________________ Crystallographic X-ray Facility . . . . . Dr Dima Chirgadze _______________________________ NMR spectroscopy . . . . . Dr Daniel Nietlispach _______________________________ Fermentation Facility . . . . . Dr Nianshu Zhang _______________________________ Bioinformatics & Computational Biology Services . . . . . Dr Jenny Barna _______________________________ Computer & IT Support . . . . . Dr Erik Timmers _______________________________

Past members last known active weblink

Select past member of Department Dr Stephen Bell Prof. Jonathan Blackburn Dr David Brown Dr Pak-Lee Chau Dr Hal Dixon (deceased) Dr Jessica Downs Prof. David Ellar Dr Paul Kemp Dr Simon Lovell Dr Kenji Mizuguchi Dr Massimo Paoli Prof. Richard Perham Dr Peter Reynolds Dr Philip Rubery Dr Gerry Smith Dr Margaret Sunde Prof. Jamie Vandenberg Dr Kira Weissman

Reset Menus

Mechanisms and Therapies for Atherosclerosis

Research Groupings: Cardiovascular science and medicine | Structural and molecular cell biology

The Section of Cardiovascular Biology comprises four independent research groups focussed on mechanisms of cardiovascular disease in atherosclerosis, thrombosis and cardiac arrhythmias. The disease target of our group is atherosclerosis, in which the walls of the main coronary arteries develop lipid-filled lesions that may occlude the arteries and are liable to rupture, leading to thrombosis and myocardial infarction. We analysed mechanisms of disease in smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells prepared from rat arteries and subsequently from human arteries, using tissue provided by the heart transplant programme at Papworth Hospital. Based on these studies and on work using mice that were genetically modified in various ways to develop atherosclerotic lesions, we proposed that an endogenous cytokine, TGFb, has a major protective effect on the arterial wall. This hypothesis offered a potential therapeutic strategy and we showed that a class of drugs, the selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), increased TGFb levels in mouse arteries and effectively blocked lesion formation in several different genetically modified mice.

In clinical studies we showed that SERMs had potentially beneficial effects on a spectrum of blood risk factors in men with advanced atherosclerosis, including lipoproteins and fibrinogen. We also showed that SERMs markedly improved the severely compromised physiological function of arterial endothelium in the same patients. An exclusive licence to our patents for the use of SERMs in stents for the treatment of coronary artery disease was granted to Boston Scientific in 2004.
Most recently we have been applying cDNA microarray, proteomic and metabolomic analyses to determine whether the presence of coronary artery disease can be diagnosed non-invasively.

Lab members
John Fletcher, Hatty Harris, Heide Kirschenlohr, Serena Scollen

References