Curriculum Vitae
Research
Interest
My laboratory has
focused on determining the mechanism of artery wall calcification
in atherosclerosis. Though it was previously considered a passive
process, vascular calcification is now known to recapitulate
embryonic osteogenesis under the control of a variety of bone
differentiation factors, in part due to our research. After
developing the first cell culture model of spontaneous vascular
calcification, we isolated the artery wall cell responsible for
matrix mineralization, and identified it as a multipotential
mesenchymal stem cell with substantial self-renewal capacity. Most
recently, we used computational analysis to demonstrate that these
vascular stem cells organize themselves into predictable patterns
through a reaction-diffusion process governed by differential
diffusion of two morphogens, bone morphogenetic protein and its
inhibitor, matrix carboxyglutamic acid protein. This research is
essential because vascular calcification is common and promotes
heart failure and hypertension. Its prevalence may increase even
further with the widespread supplementation of food with calcium and
vitamin D.
Representative
Publications
Garfinkel A, Tintut
Y, Petrasek D, Bostrom K, Demer LL. Pattern formation by
vascular mesenchymal cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004;
101(25):9247-50.
Demer LL,
Tintut Y. Mineral exploration: Search for the mechanism of vascular
calcification and beyond: The 2003 Jeffrey M. Hoeg Award lecture.
Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2003; 23(10):1739-43.
Abedin M, Tintut Y,
Demer LL. Mesenchymal stem cells and the artery wall. Circ
Res. 2004; 95(7):671-6. |
