May 29, 2017 – Vascularization

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Anchor lead: How can studying blood vessel formation improve medical care? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Blood vessels form in a process known as vascularization, and it’s important in maintaining healthy tissues as well as in abnormal conditions like cancer. That’s according to Sharon Gerecht, director of the Institute of Nanobiotechnology at Johns Hopkins.

Gerecht: We want to study vascularization because it’s the process that contributes to the development, regeneration and wound healing. But it’s also the process that is actually feeding tumors to grow, prosper but also spread to distant organs.  :16

Gerecht says this research has identified important differences in blood vessel formation at different places in the body.

Gerecht: why one area in the body is responding to whatever is happening in the eye and it’s not in the entire body? Because it’s a specific response to the eye so you have to take into account the surrounding tissue.  :14

Gerecht says people with conditions like macular degeneration as well as cancer and transplants will benefit from this research. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.