Why do lupus patients have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease?
Assistant Professor Anne Troldborg from the Department of Biomedicine and the Department of Clinical Medicine will investigate why patients with the autoimmune disease lupus have a high risk of developing cardiovascular disease. For this project, she will receive an Inge Lehmann grant of almost DKK 3 million from Independent Research Fund Denmark.
People with the chronic, autoimmune disease lupus have a three-times higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease than the rest of the population. We still do not know why, but via their newly developed method (NTA) Anne Troldborg and her colleagues have shown that blood samples from lupus patients contain more large protein complexes than corresponding blood samples from healthy people.
Using physical, mathematical models, the research team can predict whether the large protein complexes floating around in the blood will be pressed into the vessel wall. And the hypothesis is that the large protein complexes become stuck to the vessel wall and contribute to the damage that leads to cardiovascular disease.
Anne Troldborg will investigate this more closely with an Inge Lehmann grant of DKK 2,874,384. Among other things, she will CT scan the coronary arteries of lupus patients and examine lupus animal models with high concentrations of particles in the blood. Anne Troldborg hopes that the project will be a step forward to being able to identify lupus patients with a high risk of cardiovascular disease, so that the vascular damage can be prevented earlier and better.
This coverage is based on press material from Independent Research Fund Denmark
Contact
Assistant Professor Anne Margrethe Troldborg
Aarhus University, Department of Biomedicine and Department of Clinical Medicine and
Aarhus University Hospital, Department of Rheumatology
Mail: anne.m.troldborg@clin.au.dk