A consortium led by the CNIC receives funding from the “la Caixa” Foundation to discover new therapeutic targets in atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis (accumulation of cholesterol and inflammation of the arterial walls) is the leading cause of death in the world, compromising blood flow and causing, among others, heart or brain infarcts due to the deprivation of blood and oxygen to the tissues.
Although most risk factors (high-fat diet, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, aging, sedentary lifestyle) act throughout the body, these lesions develop in places where blood flow is irregular (i.e. arterial bifurcations), which causes inflammation and makes the vessel sensitive to other risk factors, promoting the development of atherosclerosis. Current therapies (anti-inflammatory, cholesterol reduction) slow the progression of the disease, but do not reverse it. It is necessary to understand how the different mechanisms cooperate to maintain the progression of the disease, even when a specific factor is nullified.
To respond to this problem, the “la Caixa” Foundation, within the 2020 Health Research Call, has funded the AtheroConvergencia project with €999,988, which will be carried out by a consortium led by the CNIC researcher Miguel Ángel del Pozo.
In the consortium, the following researchers’ groups will also participate:
- Martin A. Schwartz, Yale University, New Haven, CT USA
- Jacob Fog Bentzon, Aarhus University, Denmark
- Jesús Ruiz-Cabello, Center for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials Association, Spain
Through AtheroConvergence (Flow-driven inflammation and arterial wall remodeling in atherosclerosis: mechanisms and therapeutic potential) the consortium will try to find new markers and therapeutic targets in atherosclerosis. This initiative combines multidisciplinary experience and the latest technologies to obtain a global understanding of the disease, identify new opportunities for precision medicine to intervene in advanced atherosclerosis, and find new predictive genetic markers of the potential risk of developing atherosclerosis.
Other researchers from the CNIC also participated in this project, like Fátima Sánchez, Héctor Bueno or Carlos del Fresno.
