＊D5 Medical & Life Science Seminar＊

September 13 2017

Date:   September 13, 2017 (Wed)      Time:  17:30 -

Venue:  IRCMS 1F Meeting Lounge  

Speaker: Koichi NISHIYAMA M.D., Ph.D. 

Associate Professor, IRCMS, Kumamoto University, Japan 

"Understanding of angiogenic mechanisms as a multicellular morphogenesis"

Angiogenesis is an important vital reaction to increase vascular network, in which new blood vessel emerges from pre-existing ones. Angiogenesis is a universal phenomenon that takes place in most tissues not only at ontogenic stages but also and at postnatal athophysiological stages such wound healing and tumor growth. Therefore, it is considered to be a potential therapeutic target for various diseased conditions. In addition, from the point of view of biological science, angiogenesis is of extreme interest as a multicellular morphogenesis. Only two types of component cells, vascular endothelial cells (EC) and perivascular pericytes, concertedly construct a complex but highly ordered dendrite structure with lumen in a self-organization-like manner and spatio-temporally in response to angigoenic molecular activity. However, the morphogenetic mechanisms still remain largely unknown. Recently, we found angiogenic EC behaviors to be more dynamic and complex than previously thought. We have further identified that blood flow-derived mechanical force potently influences the dynamics in angiogenic processes. In this seminar, I will introduce and discuss angiogenic dynamics and the underlying mechanisms on the basis of our findings, which are obtained by an integrated approach that includes imaging biology, reconstitution biology and quantitative & theoretical biology.