Keynote Speaker of the Informa Award Lecture

Professor Kathy Griendling

Prof. Kathy Griendling received her PhD in Cardiovascular Physiology from Johns Hopkins University in 1982, and performed her postdoctoral training with Dr. Robert Cox at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. R. Wayne Alexander at Harvard University. She is currently a Professor of Medicine in the Cardiology Division of Emory University, and a Fellow of the American Heart Association. She serves as an Associate Editor for Circulation Research and The American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology, and is one of the Executive Editors of Antioxidants and Redox Signaling. In 2005, she became the Vice Chair for Faculty Development in the Department of Medicine.

Prof. Griending’s research is focused on the role of NADPH oxidases (Nox) in vascular biology and disease. Her laboratory uses molecular techniques to study the subunit structure of Nox enzymes and their downstream targets. She has a particular interest in how reactive oxygen species (ROS) derived from these enzymes regulate the signaling pathways leading to smooth muscle proliferation, migration and differentiation. Prof. Griendling and co-workers have identified a number of ROS-sensitive targets, including c-Src, p38MAPK, PDK-1 and Akt. Using transgenic and knockout mouse models, they have demonstrated a role for the NADPH oxidases in hypertension and restenosis. A goal of these in vivo studies is to define the role of specific Nox enzymes in specific vascular diseases. More recently, her laboratory has begun to investigate the interaction between angiotensin II and insulin signaling in vascular smooth muscle, in an attempt to understand the molecular basis for the link between angiotensin and Type 2 diabetes.

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