Lymphatic Structure and Function in Health and Disease

Dr. Gavins is a pharmacologist whose research interest focuses on developing anti-inflammatory strategies that promote resolution of inflammation following ischemia reperfusion injury (I/RI) in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. She is specifically interested in the role of the microvasculature as a dynamic-interface between circulating blood- and immune-cells, lymphatics and tissue. Her group studies how circulating cells communicate, adhere and migrate across endothelial borders, along with investigating how circulating and resident cells can render systemic inflammatory responses and alter local inflammatory and thrombotic states. More recently Dr. Gavins has expanded her research to also cover microvascular dysfunction in the setting of organ transplantation, as evidenced by enhanced solute barrier function failure, neutrophil recruitment and endothelial damage.Dr. Alexander is a cardiovascular biologist working on how small blood vessels become injured during the process of inflammation. Several diseases including stroke, cancer, Crohn's disease and diabetes are associated with disturbances in how blood vessels restrict exchange of their contents, leading to the development of edema. His current models indicate the dysregulation of several classes of junctional molecules (tight or occludens junctions, adherens junctions and complexus adherents junctions) mediate the elevated exchange of solute proteins and inflammatory cells during active inflammation and in transplantation injury. A new and important direction in this area of research is the development of models which consider the lymphatic system and the growth of lymphatic endothelial cells which is known to participate in tumor cell metastasis, but also acute and chronic inflammation.