The first Circulation Rounds
for the 2006-2007 school
year and the 9th Circulation
Rounds overall took place in
the Terrence Donnelly
Cardiovascular Laboratories
at St. Michael’s Hospital,
Toronto on November 6,
2006. Dr. David Courtman
was the speaker for the
evening, who presented an
interesting talk entitled
“Vascular Biology of Arterial
Aneurysms.”
Dr. Courtman discussed the rising
prevalence in the last few decades of
abdominal aortic aneurysms,
predominately in the aging male
population. Human abdominal aortic
aneurysms have very disorganized
collagen structures and Dr. Courtman
described how his laboratory is now
using laser capture microscopy to
examine smooth muscle cells from
abdominal aortic aneurysm samples
and elucidate their gene expression
profiles compared to the whole
structure. Dr. Courtman also
presented a very helpful synopsis on
vascular remodeling as a whole and
thoroughly illustrated how remodeling
is an adaptive response which
depends on the extent and direction
of rearrangement of vascular matrix
and the balance of this response can
lead to either stenosis (inward
remodeling) or aneurysm (outward
remodeling) formation.
The event was
well attended by
a variety of
research
enthusiasts,
largely
consisting of
students, postdoctoral fellows
and research
associates. The
topic brought
forth much
discussion as
there was a lot
of interest in the
development of
and treatments
for aneurysms.
This event was
sponsored by the Cardiovascular Sciences Collaborative Program Student
Association and was well received.