FIU’s Joshua Hutcheson is studying cardiovascular calcification to understand why it is that the more abnormal calcification present in arteries, the less calcification and mineral development in bone. He and colleagues are comparing how vesicles form and function in bone cells versus artery cells.
Early evidence suggests there’s crosstalk between the two cell types, raising the possibility of coaxing calcium and phosphate from arteries back into bone. The team has shown that activating the hormone relaxin in preclinical mouse models and human cells in vitro reduced and reversed late-stage vascular calcification. “This is the dream,” Hutcheson says. “To find a way to reverse the pathology and return patients to a normal baseline.”
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