Lay Summary

Proposal No.  IBD-0140
Principal Investigator:  Silvio Danese, M.D.
Applicant Organization:  Catholic University of Rome (Italy)
Project Title:  Angiogenesis in inflammatory bowel disease:  the contribution of platelet-endothelial interactions and implications for novel therapeutic approaches
Period of Award:  February 1, 2005 – February 28, 2007

The growth of new blood vessels in diseased tissues is called angiogenesis.  Angiogenesis plays an important role in many disease states, including chronic inflammatory conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).  Because of its contribution to maintenance of chronic inflammation, it has been recently suggested that blocking the formation of new blood vessels could be therapeutically beneficial and lead to clinical improvement.  This hypothesis has been proposed for a variety of chronic inflammatory conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, asthma, diabetes-associated blindness, atherosclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease.  Whether angiogenesis also plays a role in IBD and whether its blockade is clinically beneficial remains to be determined.  Platelets are a special type of cells that play a role in formation of blood clots and have recently emerged as elements critically involved in promotion of angiogenesis.  In this project, we propose to investigate the role of platelets in IBD by studying their ability to induce angiogenesis and to verify whether blocking platelets can improve IBD.