Albany university receives nearly $2M in NIH grant for vascular disease research

Albany Medical College in Albany, N.Y., has been awarded a $1.9 million, five-year renewal grant from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to further explore the mechanisms underlying artery disease and injury-induced blockages of blood vessels.

The research team will be led by Harold Singer, PhD, professor and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Sciences at Albany Medical College.

The grant renewal, titled “Calcium/Calmodulin Activated Kinases in Smooth Muscle,” allows Singer and his team to advance their most recent findings, which identified the changes that occur in a specific calcium-regulated protein following vascular injury, ultimately signaling the growth of cells in the blood vessel wall.

To further their understanding, the researchers will aim to identify the pathways of the intracellular signals that instigate the production of damaged cells and contribute to the advancement of vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis and restenosis. They noted that the goal of their research is to identify a more targeted approach to developing new therapeutic treatments for vascular disease.

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