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Sunday, November 11, 2001



Isle researcher to speak at
national heart conference


By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

A Hawaii researcher who has identified a possible mechanism contributing to premature narrowing of the arteries will describe his findings at an American Heart Association conference tomorrow in Anaheim, Calif.

"It is really a privilege to be invited to talk," said Zsolt Urban, assistant researcher in the University of Hawaii's Pacific Biomedical Research Center and an adjunct assistant professor in the John A. Burns School of Medicine.

Urban's research could lead to additional treatment for atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, and to better stents and balloon angioplasty to open arteries for blood flow to the heart, he said.

Urban, in a recent interview, said he has been looking for a number of years at an inherited disease that involves narrowing of the arteries, especially the aorta, the main artery that comes out of the heart. He found that mutations in the elastin gene cause supravalvular aortic stenosis, a childhood genetic disorder.

Elastin is a protein that builds elastic fibers and gives cells resiliency. It acts like rubber, especially in the blood vessels, Urban said, "so when the pulse comes with the heart beating, the artery will expand and elastin will permit it to regain its original shape."

"The prevailing thinking in the scientific community was elastin is very important for mechanical properties of blood vessels, but it doesn't do much else," he said.

His studies provide evidence that elastin also is important for keeping cells from proliferating, he said.

Studies of patients show cells proliferate uncontrolled if elastin is deficient, with cell growth closing up inside the blood vessel, he said.

Clogging of arteries, or restenosis, recurs in about half of the cases in which surgeons open them with angioplasty or stents (little wire tubes), Urban noted.

If researchers can identify how elastin regulates cell proliferation, he said, maybe they can find more natural or new ways to inhibit restenosis and control development of atherosclerosis.

The Heart Association meeting is the largest scientific conference in the nation, usually attracting 30,000 people.

The Hawaii association's spokesman, Don Weisman, said nearly three-fourths of deaths from cardiovascular diseases result from atherosclerosis.

Urban received a two-year, $57,640 grant from the American Heart Association-Hawaii in 1997 as seed money for his research project. In January, he received a three-year, $214,500 national Heart Association grant to pursue his investigations and support students working with him.



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