Louis Messina's Biography

Louis Messina, Professor and Chief Division od Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Vice Chair Department of Surgery, University of Massachusetts Medical School

Traditionally our lab focused on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate collateral artery enlargement towards a long-term goal develop molecular therapies to increase collateral artery enlargement. We are in the early stage of a Phase 1 clinical trial of a therapy that increases nitric oxide bioavailability in order to increase pain-free walking distance in people who suffer from intermittent claudication. Obesity will soon replace smoking and the most common cause of preventable deaths. Thus, a second focus of our lab is to understand how hypercholesterolemia, a metabolic disorder common in obese people, increases cancer risk of experimental colorectal cancer. In search of this mechanism we have identified a new mechanism that regulates innate immunity against cancer. This is caused by hypercholesterolemia-induced oxidant stress of hematopoietic stem cells that impairs their differentiation towards terminally differentiated innate immune cells that comprises immuno-surveillance against cancer.