Research Overview

The research in the Vascular Biology Laboratory is focused on understanding the interaction of lifestyle and adiposity on vascular health and disease. We are especially interested in the mechanisms which underly the detrimental vascular effects of both adipose (ie. fat) tissue and sedentary lifestyle.

We hypothesize that the combination of obesity and sedentary lifestyle accelerates cardiovascular disease complications (such as heart attacks and strokes) through effects associated or driven by insulin resistance. We are using in vivo mouse models to explore several lines of research related to adipose tissue and vascular disease including leptin receptor mutant mice and mice lacking adipose tissue (ie. "fatless") mice.

In addition, we have initiated translational studies to examine the relationship between adiposity, insulin resistance and thrombosis risk in human populations.