A member of the Microcirculatory Society since 1990, Dr. Ley will present his Landis Award Lecture on Leukocyte Integrin Activation on April 23, 2017, during the annual Experimental Biology Meeting in Chicago. Each year, the Eugene M. Landis Award recognizes an outstanding investigator in the field of microcirculation who has published and continues to provide meritorious research in the field of microcirculation.
"It is an incredible honor to receive the Landis Award from the Microcirculatory Society," said Dr. Ley, whose research on microcirculation started 35 years ago, when he discovered the regulation of microvascular permeability by oxygen free radicals.
"If I had known back then what we know now, I would have studied immunology earlier. The immune system is the way to manipulate inflammation, prevent and cure many diseases, including cardiovascular disease."
Today, Dr. Ley's work centers mostly on the inflammatory component of atherosclerosis, defined as build-up of deposits, or plaques, of cholesterol, calcium, and inflammatory cells in arteries. Over time, plaques limit blood flow, and, if they obstruct a vessel like the coronary artery, can trigger a heart attack. Plaque rupture also increases the chance of stroke or blood clots in the brain.
Since it is actually the inflammation emerging at sites of vessel tissue damage that encourages arterial plaque buildup in the first place, Dr. Ley is actively working on an anti-inflammatory heart vaccine aimed at dialing down inflammation in affected arteries. His other research interests include the study of neutrophils, a type of white blood cells important for inflammation, activation of integrins, a type of adhesion molecule, and bioinformatics.
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