Angiogenesis Research to Improve Therapies for Vascular Leak Syndromes, Intra-abdominal Adhesions, and Arterial Injuries

摘要

The three goals of this project are: (i) to discover and develop novel drugs which could prevent or reverse the vascular leak syndrome; (ii) to develop angiogenesis inhibitors which would inhibit post-operative abdominal adhesions; and, (iii) to isolate endothelial progenitor cells from blood, capable of being expanded in vitro and applied to vascular grafts. Progress has been made in each category: we have demonstrated that the widely used antibiotic, doxycyline, is a potent inhibitor of VEGF-induced vascular leak, and that a combination of Lodamin and doxycycline have additive effects and inhibit vascular leakage by greater than 80%; we have established that sunitinib likely does prevent intra-abdominal postoperative adhesions in rabbits; and, we have isolated and characterized mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs) from human adult bone marrow and from human cord blood; showed expansion potential suitable for tissue engineering and tissue regeneration applications.