Harvesting the potential of genomics for cardiovascular disease started with Dr Korff showing an elegant in vitro system to study angiogenesis. This in vitro system uses a co-culture system of smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells that can be used to screen for antiangiogenic compounds.
Dr Yla-Herttuala showed that laser micro-dissection to dissect macrophage rich regions in atherosclerotic plaques combined with cDNA arrays can identify genes typically for macrophages but also new genes. Using a whole genome chip to study human blood monocytes with and without simvastatin stimulation showed not only an effect on the cholesterol pathway but also down regulated inflammatory genes underlining the anti-inflammatory role of statins.
A combined 2D gel proteomics and metabolic approach was used in Dr Mayr’s presentation to study the ischaemic preconditioning in the heart of mouse genetic models and showed that protein kinase delta and epsilon cross talk to protect the heart.
The final speaker was Dr Baker who showed the latest impressive improvements of gene therapy vectors in cardiac gene delivery, integration, longevity of expression and targeting other tissues.