Good Science and Strong Mentoring Lead to Scientific Development Grant
Jan. 2008 CVC UPBEAT - David Zhang, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular) has been selected to receive a Scientific Development Grant (SDG) from the American Heart Association (AHA). Scientific Development Grants are awarded to promising young investigators to help launch their careers as independent scientists.
The goal of the grants is to provide young faculty with the support and guidance needed to develop an independent grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the next few years.
"Dr. Zhang has the distinction of having his first nationally competitive grant application funded on the first round," said one of his primary mentors, David Gutterman, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Research and Northwestern Mutual Professor of Cardiology. "He has created a very powerful approach to examining vascular biology in humans and animals by combining physiology, pharmacology, molecular biology and calcium signaling."
Since joining Dr. Gutterman's research group last year, Dr. Zhang has investigated how blood flow stimulates vascular endothelial cells to release relaxing factors that in turn cause vessel relaxation, a phenomenon termed as flow-mediated dilation.
"Flow-mediated dilation is an important physiological regulator of regional blood flow in most every blood vessel studied," said Dr. Zhang. "An impairment of this dilation is one of the key early events in the development of atherosclerosis, a disease that causes inflammation and hardening in the walls of the arteries.
"In particular, we examine whether a specific calcium ion channel (TRPV4), a protein located on the surface of the cell membrane of endothelial cells that line blood vessels, is activated by flow," he added. "We also examine whether this activation results in a cascade of cellular events leading to vessel relaxation.
Dr. Zhang hopes to gain new insight into the development of atherosclerosis and other vascular diseases by understanding the cellular mechanisms involved in this phenomenon. The studies are clinically significant because they involve the use of both human tissue and animal models.
Although Dr. Gutterman attributes the AHA award to Dr. Zhang's strength as a scientist and excellent writing skills, Dr. Zhang points to the superb support and guidance he's received from a coalition of mentors and collaborators, and the support provided by the Cardiovascular Center and the Medical College's Department of Medicine.
In addition to Dr. Gutterman, Dr. Zhang cites critical support provided by David Harder, PhD, the Kohler Co. Professor of Cardiovascular Research and of Physiology and Director of the Cardiovascular Center; G. Richard Olds, MD, Linda and John Mellowes Professor and Chairman of Medicine; and William Campbell, PhD, Chairman and Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology, who served as Dr. Zhang's mentor during his postdoctoral fellowship from 2003-2006.
"These individuals have provided me with excellent support in terms of my research project, grant writing, letters of reference, and general enthusiasm and encouragement," said Dr. Zhang.
Currently, Dr. Zhang serves as a co-investigator on two of Dr. Gutterman's NIH-funded studies, Flow-Mediated Dilation of Human Coronary Arterioles and High Glucose and Arteriolar Kv Channels. Prior to beginning his post doctoral fellowship in 2003, Dr. Zhang earned a Master's degree in Pharmacology in 1996 at Shanghai Medical University, Shanghai, China, and his MD degree in 1993 from the University of Norman Bethune Medical Sciences in Changchun, China.
He received the Medical College of Wisconsin Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2003, the Jenkins Cardiovascular Research Fellowship Award in 2004, and the Best Basic Research Presentation at the Internal Medicine Research Day in 2007.