The one-year pilot grant, “Nanoscale Therapeutics to Reduce Microglial-mediated CNS Inflammation Associated with Hypertension Sensitization,” supports a collaborative project between the Dailey lab (Biology), the lab of Dr. Alan Kim Johnson (Psychological & Brain Sciences), and the lab of Dr. Aliasger Salem (Laboratory of Advanced Drug and Gene Delivery, UI College of Pharmacy).
The goal is to design, synthesize, and characterize improved dendrimer-based nanocarriers to reduce microglial activation and proinflammatory cytokine production, and to determine the extent to which anti-inflammatory nanoparticles abrogate sensitization of the hypertensive response in a rodent model.