The word “angiogenesis” comes from the Greek angêion, which means “vase”, and génesis, which means “birth”. Angiogenesis is the science that studies the formation of new vessels. Therapeutic angiogenesis opens avenues for novel treatment of heart disease, meant to improve cardiac oxygenation and reduce heart failure.

The research area on “therapeutic angiogenesis” is co-ordinated by Elisabetta Dejana, from the FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan, and Stefanie Dimmeler who heads the Molecular Cardiology Group within the Department of Cardiology at the University of Frankfurt.

With their work the scientists endeavor to clarify the basic mechanism of new vessel formation following tissue ischemia . A lot of evidences indicate that this process, called angiogenesis or vasculogenesis, play a central role in the response to a vessel damage or occlusion. However in some clinical cases this natural response is insufficient to block the progression of the ischemic disease. Therefore, therapeutic neovascularisation is considered as a very promising approach to prevent serious clinical consequences in patients who had experimented this disease. In recent years, therapeutic strategies designed to increase vessels growth have been applied in animal models with good results.

The aim of one of the teams involved in these research is to identify the genes which are expressed in endothelial cells (the cells forming the blood vessel wall) exposed to different stress condition, such as hypoxia (lack of oxygen) or ischemia. Both animal models and genomics and proteomics tool will be used in this research.

People working in an another workin group are trying to define the optimal condition for the endothelial progenitor cells to expand (the process that lead to a new vascularization). A particular attention is given to growth factors that promote the new vessels formation.

The researches carried out by the two previous groups are the basis for the studies of other two teams. The findings on endothelial gene expression and the condition to promote revascularisation will serve as background to explore the possibilities of using new therapies to improve post-ischemic tissue regeneration.

Characterization of circulating endothelial cells is the main purpose of a different team of researchers. Number, function and activity of these cells will be measured with high accuracy in patients with risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The functional activity of this cells will be correlated with other characteristics of patient such as genetic markers and endothelial tissue function.

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