Research involves

Smooth muscle cells and their regulatory proteins; defining the function of proteins; diagramming the molecular basis of hypertension and other diseases related to smooth muscle cell function

Research relevance

Understanding the signaling processes involved in diseases-including cancer and hypertension. Could provide breakthroughs for new drug targets.

Smooth Muscle Cells

Molecular biologists are increasingly confident that understanding the way cells communicate is the key to controlling the progression of certain disease. That's why Michael Walsh is concentrating on smooth muscle cells.

Smooth muscle cells form a major part of the walls of blood vessels. They regulate blood pressure through their ability to contract and relax, controlling the diameter of the vessels. On one side of a blood vessel wall there is a single layer of cells-called endothelial cells-that regulate smooth muscle cell function. Abnormalities in the way that smooth muscle and endothelial cells function contribute to a number of diseases, including hypertension, coronary artery disease, end-stage renal disease, and diabetes mellitus.

Walsh's laboratory at The University of Calgary is concentrating on the signaling pathways that regulate smooth muscle contraction. Identifying defective mechanisms in this process would allow scientists to try to control the progression, or even prevent the onset of these diseases.

Among the keys to the research is the use of technologies associated with research into proteins, and how those proteins interact within cells and respond to signals arriving at the cell surface. Since this area of research is a dominant one in the field of biology, awarding this research chair will help to establish Calgary as a centre of excellence in the field.

Walsh's discoveries are coming at an important time, given the concurrent advances in technology and in the human genome project. Gene-chip technology should ultimately allow researchers to identify defects or alterations in the way genes are expressed. If the relationship between those genes and specific diseases is diagrammed, the potential exists to target new drugs and treatments to interrupt the progression of a disease, or to halt the "switches" that turn it on before it has a chance to damage the human host it is attacking.