New potential drug target for the treatment of atherosclerosis

New potential drug target for the treatment of atherosclerosis:

A nuclear receptor protein, known for controlling the ability of cells to burn fat, also exerts powerful anti-inflammatory effects in arteries, suppressing atherosclerosis in mice prone to developing the harmful plaques, according to new research by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Their findings, reported in this week’s online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer a new and specific target for the development of drugs that specifically treat cardiovascular complications associated with metabolic syndrome.

“Heart disease is like a ticking clock—it is progressive, relentlessly marching forward accelerated by a mix of high fat diets, inflammation and high blood pressure. We show that PPAR delta offers a kind of genetic shortcut around each of these medical roadblocks,” says Howard Hughes Medical Investigator Ronald M. Evans, Ph.D., a professor in the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory, who co-directed the study with Chih-Hao Lee, a professor in the Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health.

comment: very promising research into an oral compound that can impact atheroscelerosis. Less money to war, more money for this sort of research!

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