Dave's Blog

“Interface of TH2 Inflammation and TGF-beta Signaling in Pulmonary Hypertension” – A Synopsis

Below is a synopsis of this video “Interface of TH2 Inflammation and TGF-beta Signaling in Pulmonary Hypertension”, a talk by Rubin Tuder given at the Vera Moulton Wall Center for Pulmonary Vascular Disease: Summary He has shown the first statistical correlation of perivascular inflammation with mPAP and vascular remodeling (~60 lungs from IPAH, hereditary PAH, scleroderma associated PH) despite current PH drugs: Schistosomiasis – 200 million people infected by parasite – in temperate areas like China, Brazil, Sudan, etc. 1-10% of people infected will develop PH Rather than talking about things where we don’t know what the cause/effect relationship is

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“Fatty acid metabolism in pulmonary arterial hypertension: role in right ventricular dysfunction and hypertrophy” – A Review

In the below I will be referencing and discussing quotes from the paper “Fatty acid metabolism in pulmonary arterial hypertension: role in right ventricular dysfunction and hypertrophy” by M. Talati. Basically, I’m distilling the key points that I’ve learned, summarizing them, and including any thoughts I may have. Overall it appears that the running thread through this paper is the following: Can metabolic syndrome or insulin resistance in PH cause RV dysfunction? Or is the dysfunction a result of PH? In sum, there is a dysregulation in fatty acid oxidation and glucose oxidation, with increased intracellular lipid accumulation, and an overall switch

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“Role Of T-Regulatory Cells In Immune Modulation” – A Synopsis

Below is a video and synopsis of the talk “Role Of T-Regulatory Cells In Immune Modulation” by Dr. Maria Roncarolo at the Vera Moulton Wall Center for Pulmonary Vascular Disease: Summary Standard treatment of immune mediated diseases involves anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs. By doing this, you downregulate the physiological mechanism to counteract inflammation and adaptive immune responses to self-antigens. Almost all immunosuppressive drugs block T-regulatory cell induction and function. Tolerance is not a lack of immune response, it is just a different type of immune response that the immune system puts in place when we want to tolerize an antigen (self

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“Novel Insights Into Lung Autoimmunity Through Research In Rare Mendelian Diseases” – A Synopsis

This is a video by Dr. Anthony Shum from an excellent series of talks by the Vera Moulton Wall Center for Pulmonary Vascular Disease (a brief summary of which is below): Summary Exome sequencing (similar to what 23andMe does) can provide insight into rare Mendelian diseases. Specifically, Dr. Shum has used this to analyze patients with autoimmune interstitial lung disease patients (typically patients who present at a young age, have pulmonary hemorrhage, arthritis, and presence of the autoantibodies ANCA and ANA) and has found that they all contain a mutation in the COPA gene, which was predicted to be damaging.

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