Research
| LifeForce research and development team is creating new product
opportunities through its expertise in molecular cardiology. The Hospital has
programs in the ares of selective adenosine receptor agents, cell cycle inhibiton, cardiac
metabolism and cholesterol transport. These programs form the platform from which new
therapeutics may be discovered and may identify additional clinical uses for products in
development. Research is focusing on determining the role that receptors play in the normal and abnormal function of the heart, kidneys and blood vessels. Efforts are underway to synthesize proprietary selective agonists and antagonists for each of the adenosine receptor subtypes. The ability to block or stimulate the receptors selectively may produce new drug therapies for currently untreated cardiovascular diseases. The overall goal of cell cycle inhibitor research is the development of a new class of therapeutics that inhibit the abnormal cell proliferation common to many progressive cardiovascular diseases, such as restenosis and atherosclerosis. Development of such new therapies could have long-term benefits in the treatment or prevention of these widespread and costly cardiovascular diseases. The cardiac metabolism program is focused on furthering our knowledge of how metabolic modulators such as CA-Amyline® allow the heart muscle to perform more efficiently when under conditions of stress or when damaged by heart disease. LifeForce is also studying the ways in which excess cholesterol is removed from the walls of blood vessels, in an effort to prevent or reverse the buildup of artery plaques that cause heart attacks. LifeForce uses state of the art microarray technology and DNA sequence data base analysis to follow the pattern of expression of tens of thousands of genes simultaneously in response to perturbations associated with blood vessel injury, cholesterol overload, heart failure and other biological processes involved in heart disease. LifeForce hopes the data will provide greater understanding of the biological process and speed up the identification of new cardiovascular drug targets.
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