Maria Alicia Carrillo-Sepulveda
New York Institute of Technology, NY·Physiology
Obesity affects about one in three U.S. adults and accounts for most cases of essential high blood pressure (hypertension), yet no blood-pressure drugs are designed specifically for obese patients.
- Fields
Physiology
Pharmacology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
obesity
hypertension
high blood pressure
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Test whether 2KR mice, engineered to mimic PPAR gamma without acetyl tags, are protected from aortic stiffness and high blood pressure when made obese with a western diet.
- Determine whether asprosin, a hormone released by fat, is produced downstream of excess acetylation of PPAR gamma in the fat surrounding arteries of obese mice, using drug-based and genetic approaches.
- Measure how asprosin changes the ability of blood vessels to tighten and relax, using isolated arteries and cultured cells alongside studies in live obese mice.
More about the research
Obesity also stiffens large arteries, a change that predicts heart attacks and strokes and seems to come before high blood pressure. This project asks how obesity makes arteries stiff and raises blood pressure. It focuses on the fat that wraps around blood vessels, called perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT), which normally helps protect them.
Why it matters
Hypertension linked to obesity is a major driver of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S., and no treatment targets it specifically. If removing acetyl tags from PPAR gamma, or blocking asprosin, protects arteries in mice, these could become new drug targets for treating high blood pressure and arterial stiffness in patients with obesity.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Justin Zachariah
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Compare six months of oral carnitine supplementation with placebo in 166 adolescents with high triglycerides for effect on aortic stiffness, measured as carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, while monitoring adverse events.
Erin Taylor
Augusta University, GA·Physiology
Test whether extra visceral fat worsens lupus and hypertension through harmful immune cells in fat, by surgically or pharmacologically depleting fat or its immune cells in female NZBWF1 mice.
Zhen Yue Jiang
Boston University, MA·Physiology
Test whether neutrophil elastase (NE) drives vascular leakage, inflammation and fibrosis by activating PAR2 and ENaC signaling in vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells, using cell culture and mouse studies.
The school
New York Institute of Technology: 4 labs on PI Pages, $7M a year on research, 34 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.