The ultimate goal is to translate these fundamental discoveries into novel therapies to prevent or treat vascular diseases that contribute to heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, peripheral arterial disease and other common cardiovascular conditions. The Center is particularly focused on the impact of age, sex, and risk factors including obesity and diabetes on blood vessel function. The VBRC maintains a highly collaborative environment, allowing investigators to share ideas, reagents, approaches and models to bring a multidisciplinary approach to solving important unanswered questions in vascular biology in a highly translational context.
VBRC uses a wide range of approaches, including state-of-the-art molecular biology, global genomic, proteomic, and epigenetic technologies, cell biology, whole vessel wire and pressure myography, sophisticated transgenic mice and in vivo animal models of vascular diseases and human vascular function studies. The Center works closely with the MCRI Cell Culture Core Lab, Vascular Function Core Lab and the Biobanking Core lab.
VBRC laboratories are actively studying vascular mechanisms contributing to:
- Vascular inflammation and atherosclerosis
- Hypertension
- The impact of risk factors on blood vessels, including obesity, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension
- Aortic aneurism formation and progression
- Vein graft and stent failure
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Sex differences in cardiovascular disease
- Vascular changes with normal and pathologic aging
The VBRC maintains a highly collaborative environment, allowing investigators to share ideas, reagents, approaches and models to bring a multidisciplinary approach to solving important unanswered questions in vascular biology in a highly translational context. Application to human disease is central to the approach involving collaboration with clinicians to accelerate the development of biomarkers and new molecular targets for the diagnosis and treatment of vascular disease.
Vascular Biology Research Center labs
Dupont Laboratory
Jennifer Dupont, PhD
Research Interests: Vascular Function, Estrogen, Aging, Arterial Stiffness, Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Disease
Email: Jennifer.Dupont@tuftsmedicine.org
Good Laboratory
Miranda Good, PhD
Research Interests: Stroke, Alzheimer's disease, Neurovascular Function, Neuroinflammation, Cerebral Blood Flow Regulation, Pannexin1 Channels
Email: Miranda.Good@tuftsmedicine.org
Icli Laboratory
Basak Icli, PhD
Research Interests: Obesity, Type-2 Diabetes, Acute Myocardial Infarction, Wound Healing, MicroRNA, Angiogenesis, Inter-organ Cross-talk, Brown Adipose Tissue
Email: Basak.Icli@tuftsmedicine.org
Jaffe Laboratory
Iris Jaffe, MD, PhD
Research Interests: Atherosclerosis, Hypertension, Vascular Biology, Aging, Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Disease, Mineralocorticoid Receptors, Cardio-oncology
Email: Iris.Jaffe@tuftsmedicine.org