Translational Vascular Medicine Group

Our group focuses on the role of SMCs in vascular biology and pathology, vessel remodelling and CVD.

We are interested in whether a vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque at risk of rupture can be predicted from clinical patient phenotypes, and if this can also lead to identification of molecular signatures of VSMC phenotypic trans-differentiations with direct relevance for human disease.

We aim to explore some of the newly discovered molecular VSMC signatures as therapeutic or diagnostic targets to improve treatment of atherosclerotic patients, and transfer this knowledge to other vascular disease territories.

There are also research niches within our group with a focus on VSMC metabolism, their role in inflammation, diabetes, immune responses in atherosclerosis and plaque neo-vascularisation.

We collaborate closely with clinicians from the Vascular Surgery Unit at Karolinska Hospital, in biobanking and exploiting human vascular material and blood collected in the operating room. We use innovative bioinformatic pipelines for orthogonally integrated multi-omics exploration of a large human atherosclerosis biobank stratified by patient clinical and epidemiological data.

With this translational approach at the interface between clinical and basic research, we have created a powerful human-centred platform for extrapolation of results into various realms of CVD with a common cellular basis. We believe that this philosophy can lead to accelerated development from target discovery to better patient management.