The Institute for Vascular Signalling

The Institute for Vascular Signalling (Director Prof. Dr. Ingrid Fleming) is a research institute that studies the biology of the vascular wall, heart and the factors that influence them during disease development. There is a particularly strong focus on the endothelial cells that are the inner most lining of the blood vessel and directly exposed to the flowing blood. We study substances generated by the endothelial cells themselves such as nitric oxide, hydrogen sulfide, mediators generated from polyunsaturated fatty acids and, more recently, microproteins. A further series of projects focus on the cardiovascular complications of diabetes in the heart as well as the impact of platelets, platelet-derived products and monocytes. All of the projects have a translational biomedicine emphasis with the aim of improving on current cardiovascular disease therapy.

Collaborative networks:
Projects housed at the Institute for Vascular Signalling belong to four different collaborative research centres (CRCs) including CRC 1531 Damage control by the stroma-vascular compartment, CRC 1039 Disease-relevant signal transduction by fatty acid derivatives and sphingolipids, CRC 1366 Vascular Control of Organ Function and CRC-TRR 267 Cardiovascular ncRNAs. The institute also belongs to the German Research Foundation funded Excellence Cluster Cardio Pulmonary Institute ( CPI) and the German Centre for Cardiovascular Research ( DZHK).

Find more about our research HERE!