I’ve been doing research in the department of pharmacology for over two years in the area of cardiovascular pharmacology. I am privileged to have the opportunity to work in this exciting field of biomedical research that is funded not only by NIH grants but also by a sizable grant from NASA. I am currently preparing data for two papers that I hope to have published by the end of next June.

The first project I worked on in Dr. Purdy’s lab involved the Korean herbal medicine known as BHP, or blue heart pill. This drug has been used by Koreans to reduce hypertension. I performed several tissue bath experiments with BHP solution and found that it indeed does have vasodilator properties. After that we decided to look to see whether the active drug of interest was soluble or not, hence we centrifuged the BHP solution and performed the same experiment with both the supernatant and the solid pellet. We found that the active drug of interest lay within the supernatant. Subsequent studies with this solution and pharmacological agents in a tissue bath showed that the mechanism of the relaxation was NOS independent. Further studies were not continued due to a lack of funding. 

 My current project involves looking at the effects of simulated microgravity on the tyrosine kinase pathway in carotid and femoral arteries. I’ve been performing tissue dissections, and doing tissue baths with pharmacological agents, such as Genestein and PP1 and vasoconstrictors such as Norepinephrine, and 5-HT. I have also been doing BCA protein assays and Western Blot analysis on shock frozen tissue samples that have either been stimulated with NE or not at all, to determine the effects of the zero gravity on specific proteins like src, HSP27 and P38 MAPK.

Further information can be found at Dr. Purdy's webpage which is on my links page.