Why does it Plaque? - Special Episode

  The Immunotmetabolab team led by Dr. Morgan Fullerton at the University of Ottawa was able to find a breakthrough in discovering a novel signaling pathway involving the AMPK-HMGCR axis associated with regulating cholesterol levels and the development of atherosclerosis.  This was achieved using atherosclerotic-prone mice to demonstrate that disrupting AMPK regulation of HMGCR leads to increased aortic lesion size, lipid accumulation, circulating cholesterol, and plaque-associated macrophages. Additionally, these mice exhibited increased atherogenic monocytes associated with the increased intracellular cholesterol in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. With this discovery, the Immunometabolab team continues to demonstrate the importance of the interaction between the immune and metabolic systems. Their findings will facilitate the development of new therapies for targeting atherosclerosis and help prevent the onset of myocardial infarction and stroke.   

Learn more:  https://www.fullertonlab.com/

Team: Athavan Murugaananthan (Voice), Ammar Alam (Content generation), Aditya Prashar (Content generation), Nicolas Toex (Post-production and Producer)

0:16 Introduction
1:15 How are metabolic and immune pathways linked, and why are you interested in this research?
2:47 What are AMPK and HMG Coa Reductase, and what role do they play in our body?
5:34 Some of the results (blocking AMPK signaling leads to the development of atherosclerosis) that you were able to find? 
8:01 Do you think that there are other pathways that could be significant in the development of atherosclerosis?
9:59 What is the significance of your research, and are there any drugs in clinical trials that revolve around it?
11:47 Conclusion

Credits for music: "Soundtracks by the Underground Drive. All rights reserved. Listen more 

https://music.apple.com/ca/artist/the-underground-drive/1571062779

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4sCJG8TMQyTZ9FDd1JjJmR"