Research

• Human Physicology: pathophysiology and clinical asssessment of arterial stiffness and systolic hypertension, mechanisms of stress responses and vasoractivity
• Clinical Trials: Antihypertensive and cardiovascular drug development with emphasis on macrovascular disease indicators.
• Basic Investigation (in collaboration with Dr. Knight): sympathetic neurinal signal transduction.

Our studies in the field of hypertension have included basic investigation and applied pharmaceutical approaches to investigate the characteristics of individual and population-based responses to drug therapy, especially why individuals respond differentially to specific drugs.

Specific focus areas of interest have included sympathetic neuronal signaling systems and clinicalphysiology of the sympathetic nervous system. Vascular research themes include exaggerated vasoreactivity and the assessment of arterial stiffness and other biophysical changes related to aging and hypertension. Other long-term interests involve clinical trials in hypertension and cardiovascular diseases and clinical outcomes in cardiovascular diseases.

Program faculty have particular strengths in the featured subdisciplines of

• Autonomic-cardiovascular-hypertension (cellular and integrative)
• Antibiotics-infectious diseases
• Pharmacologic data analysis and outcomes research
• Drug development sciences

The scope of research projects in both the Department of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacokinetics Laboratory, Millard Fillmore Health System, is wide-ranging. Ongoing projects by core faculty and fellows include but are not limited to:

• Classical research in drug development, including studies of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, particularly in cardiovascular, antibiotic, and anti-diabetic drugs
• Outcomes research using novel modeling and drug monitoring techniques
• Local and systemic pharmacodynamic effects of vasoactive drugs
• Cardiovascular pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and cardiovascular reactivity
• Antimicrobial pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics and sepsis research
• Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modeling
• Renal and hepatic pharmacokinetic studies
• pH-dependent drug absorption studies
• Development of biobehavioral techniques that are applicable to testing pharmaceutical agents (e.g., cardiovascular effects of mental stress)
• Cellular physiology.- physiological and pharmacological studies in isolated cardiomyocytes, vascular smooth muscle cells and adrenergic neurons
• Pharmacology of L-type calcium channels in cultured neurons and vascular smooth muscle
• Clinical trials of cardiovascular, metabolic, anti-infective, and antiinflammatory drugs (Phases I-IV)