Controlling Vascular Wall Healing
The treatment of lower extremity vascular disease through the use of balloon or laser angioplasty, stenting, or atherectomy remains limited by a significant incidence of restenosis. Thus, new approaches that target thrombotic and inflammatory events, which contribute to restenosis and delayed vessel wall healing are required. We postulate that thrombin and purinergic dependant pathways can be inhibited by antibody mediated targeting of thrombomodulin, CD39, and CD73 to the site of vessel wall injury. Moreover, we hypothesize that nanoparticles produced from recombinant protein polymers will provide an effective mechanism for site-specific delivery of resolvins and their metabolic precursors that will further accelerate both the resolution of the inflammatory response and the reconstitution a functionally intact endothelium. As such, we anticipate that by abrogating early inflammatory and thrombotic responses, intimal hyperplasia will be limited after catheter-based interventions.
