Projects
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In clinical practice there is a large amount of blood-pressure(BP) lowering drugs available, but, unfortunately, they rarely succeed to reduce long-term CV risk completely. Moreover, it was found that patients with high BP, who respond poorly to their treatment, are those with a stiffer aorta. Indeed, stiffening of the large arteries (e.g. the aorta) also increases CV risk and indicates that treating arterial stiffening in addition to ...
Investigating the role of autophagy in arterial calcification and arterial stiffness. University of Antwerp
Cardiovascular calcification significantly contributes to cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of mortality and a major cause of morbidity in Europe. Cardiovascular calcification occurs in both rare monogenic (e.g. pseudoxanthoma elasticum) and in common acquired diseases (e.g. atherosclerosis and chronic kidney disease). Importantly, cardiovascular calcification is an active but incompletely understood process regulated by a ...
Measuring arterial stiffness at different scales: a new toolbox for safety pharmacology. University of Antwerp
Safety pharmacology is an essential part of drug development and aims to identify and investigate adverse events of a drug before entering trials which involve human subjects. In particular, negative effects on the cardiovascular system have stopped many drug development programs. Safety pharmacology has successfully implemented a screening strategy to detect undesirable cardiovascular effects, but there is still room for improvement. ...
Protective effects of nutritional polyphenols and their metabolites towards mechanisms contributing to arterial stiffness. University of Antwerp
Natural Products & Food Research and Analysis - Pharmaceutical Technology (NatuRAPT), Physiopharmacology (PHYSPHAR), Natural Products and Food - Research and Analysis (NatuRA)
Arterial stiffness, a major health issue, progresses with age. Dietary polyphenols improve vascular stiffening via vascular, inflammatory and other mechanisms, most likely due to their metabolites. Although promising effects for prevention and treatment of arterial stiffness have been reported for blueberry and olive polyphenols, it is largely unknown which polyphenol metabolites interact with which underlying mechanisms. In this project, ...
The role of elastin-derived peptides in the progression of arterial stiffness and cardiovascular disease with a focus on autophagy inhibition as contributing mechanism. University of Antwerp
Elastin is responsible for the elasticity of the vessel wall, but due to repetitive stretches and relaxations as we age, it will fracture, leading to arterial stiffness and the release of soluble elastin-derived peptides (EDPs). Some of these EDPs are biologically active and can play a role in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Existing literature points towards a decline in autophagy by EDPs. Autophagy is a protective mechanism, ...
Seismology in the human body: exploring supersonic shear wave imaging for the assessment of arterial stiffness. Ghent University
Supersonic Shear wave Imaging (SSI) is used to characterize elasticity of soft tissues by generating and detecting shear waves (SW). SSI has proven successful for cancer diagnosis in breast and liver. Application of SSI to arterial walls is challenging due to complex SW propagation phenomena related to anisotropy and geometry of arteries. The project goal is to study SW physics in arteries by means of computer, in-vitro and ex-vivo ...
Is arterial stiffness an overlooked marker in cardio-oncology? University of Antwerp
Anthracyclines (such as doxorubicin, DOX) are among the most effective chemotherapeutics and are widely used in modern cancer treatment despite the advent of targeted therapies. However, dose-dependent cardiotoxicity limits the clinical use of DOX. It is well documented that DOX may provoke cardiotoxicity leading to left ventricular dysfunction and eventually congestive heart failure. Recent studies have reported that anthracyclines also ...
Arterial stiffening as a common pathophysiological mechanism in cardiac and kidney failure and brain degeneration. University of Antwerp
Translational Neurobiology, Pathophysiology, Translational Pathophysiological Research (TPR), Physiopharmacology (PHYSPHAR)
The elasticity of the arterial wall is a physiologically elegant solution of nature for smoothing the pulsatile flow of blood from the heart to peripheral tissues. The loss of this elasticity during life is a consequence of pathophysiological alterations in the vessels eventually causing arterial stiffening. Emerging evidence demonstrates that arterial stiffness is an important driving force for multiple heart, kidney and brain pathologies ...
An accurate and easy method for measuring the local stiffness of superficial arteries: validation and on-site feasibility testing Ghent University
Department of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Department of Electronics and information systems, Polytechnic José Antonio EcheverrÃa
The aim of the PhD research is to further develop and validate a method that allows to accurately measure arterial stiffness from fast and easy non-invasive ultrasound measurements on the neck arteries and to design and prototype a system to demonstrate the feasibility of on-site measurements in Havana, Cuba.
PRomoting Omics for the non-invasive Screening for Subclinical ARTerial Disease (PROSSART) KU Leuven
PROSSART focuses on asymptomatic individuals having stiff large arteries with altered central haemodynamics that increase the load on the heart and/or subclinical atherosclerotic alterations along the arterial tree. PROSSART is nested within FLEMENGHO, a family-based population study, and within uPROPHET, a cohort of over 350 heart transplant recipients. The project’s objective is to identify and validate novel urinary proteomic and circulating ...