Página personal de Mark Slevin

Mark Slevin, researcher of the Institute for Biomedical Research into Human Movement and Health of the Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom), is a researcher incorporated in the Cardiovascular Research Center (CSIC-ICCC) with a BBVA Foundation Chair in Biomedicine from November 2007.

The research of the Angiogenesis and Vascular Biology Group of the Manchester Metropolitant University (MMU), formed by Mark Slevin, Shant Kumar, John Gaffney, May Azzawi, Sabine Matou, is focussed on understanding the fundamental mechanisms that lead to blood vessel formation. Increased perfusion is a necessary response to restore or increase tissue function, as for example, in muscle during rehabilitation following bed-rest, in the brain following stroke, or in wound healing. Nevertheless there can also be problems associated with increased microvessel formation in diseases, such as, proliferative diabetic retinopathy, atherosclerosis and in solid tumour growth. Understanding the molecular processes involved in modulating new blood vessel formation could lead to improved recovery where increased perfusion is desirable but also more efficient therapies to treat conditions where angiogenesis is a problem.

The research group has demonstrated the pro-angiogenic properties of naturally occurring sulphated polysaccharides. Identification of Opticin as an inhibitor of angiogenesis associated with diabetic retinopathy and of CD105 as a major receptor of active endothelial cells, its involvement in TGF-b signalling pathways and its potential as a vascular target to image renal and colorectal tumours in humans. Changes in hyaluronan biosynthesis in the brain after ischaemic stroke have been demonstrated as has normal prion protein and C-reactive protein expression in neo-vasculature of unstable carotid atherosclerosis.

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