Therapeutic intervention is optimized when we understand the normal physiological signaling processes that are disrupted by a disease process, the abnormal molecular and cellular mechanisms driving disease pathogenesis, and the pharmacological profile of the intervention. Indeed, the majority of vascular…
Hemostasis occurs in response to vessel injury. The clot is essential both for the prevention of blood loss and the initiation of the wound repair process. When there is a lesion present in the blood vessel, the response is rapid,…
The centrality of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) to normal functioning of the cardiovascular system has led to decades of intensive research into the physical, cellular, and molecular mechanisms regulating VSMC biology. VSMCs are the major cell type within the…
In 1839, the German physiologist Theodor Schwann became the first to describe a “thin, but distinctly perceptible membrane” that he observed as part of the capillary vessel wall that separated circulating blood from tissue. The cellular monolayer that formed this…
In simple terms, the cardiovascular system consists of a sophisticated pump (i.e., the heart) and a remarkable array of tubes (i.e., the blood and lymphatic vessels). Arteries and arterioles (the efferent blood vessels in relation to the heart) deliver oxygen,…