Newswise — Researchers at Michigan State University will use a unique grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate an under-studied but important part of the cardiovascular system that could hold the key to why one in five Americans suffer from high blood pressure.
The $9 million grant from the NIH's Heart, Lung and Blood Institute will be used to study the role that veins, the blood vessels that transport blood back to the heart and lungs, play in hypertension.
The specialized Program Project grant also funds research that will examine how veins may contribute to other maladies, including stroke, chronic fatigue syndrome and sudden infant death syndrome.
"There has been a tremendous amount of work done on the arteries in relation to hypertension," said Gregory Fink, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology and co-director of the project. "However, there are some gaps in cardiovascular research in this country and studies on veins happens to be one of them."
Until recently, scientists considered veins to be passive vessels that served simply as a pipeline for blood to return to the heart and lungs, Fink said. It was also believed that the same hormones and other factors that controlled the bigger, thicker arteries also controlled the veins.
"In reality, there are really important differences in the way arteries and veins are controlled," he said. "And that is what this grant is all about " to discover and expand on what those differences are, and to identify medical and therapeutic consequences."
In addition to its function of helping return blood to the heart and lungs, the veins also act as a "storage depot" for blood, Fink said. Blood is not always circulating throughout the body, but some is stored for emergency purposes.
"If you become dehydrated or even if you simply stand up, there needs to be a re-distribution of blood," Fink said. "An important storage function of the veins is to make sure the blood gets to where it's supposed to be."
Fink said receiving a program project grant requires a combination of good timing and extraordinary expertise on the part of the faculty. He said when they approached NIH for funding, the institute was already considering pursuing hypertension research that focused on the venous system.
Initial funding for the project originated in the College of Osteopathic Medicine's Office of Research.
"Looking back on it," said J. Justin McCormick, the college's associate dean for research, "it was probably the best $20,000 I ever committed."
That initial funding led to other seed grants from three departments, the offices of the provost and the vice president for research and graduate studies, the College of Human Medicine, and the Neuroscience Program in the College of Natural Science.
"To get through the process and get the grant funded is a significant accomplishment," said James Galligan, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology and a project co-director. "I think it really points to the fact that there are top-notch biomedical scientists at MSU who are doing cutting-edge research."
Other members of the research team include Stephanie Watts, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology; Alex Chen, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology; and David Kreulen, a professor in the departments of neurology and ophthalmology, and physiology.
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