Volkhard Lindner, M.D., Ph.D., a full time research scientist at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute (Center for Molecular Medicine), received his M.D. and Ph.D. degree from the University of Tuebingen, Germany. He joined MMCRI in 1995 after leaving an Assistant Professor position at the University of Washington in Seattle. He serves as a member on peer review committees for grant applications to the American Heart Association at the national and affiliate level.

Research interests

His research interests are focused on blood vessels and the factors that control the growth of cells in the vessel wall. As uncontrolled growth of vascular cells is responsible for myocardial infarctions, strokes, tumor growth, and failure of vascular interventions, his laboratory has identified the role of several important growth factors in experimental models of vascular diseases. As a postdoctoral fellow he identified basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF-2) as the key player to induce proliferation of vascular cells in injured arteries. Targeting this growth factor is currently a major effort among the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. The characterization of high molecular FGF-2 complexes circulating in plasma and serum is a major focus of his research. More recently his laboratory identified transforming growth factor beta as the mediator of constriction or shrinking of arteries in response to angioplasty procedures which ultimately causes a third of these procedures to fail. Using a receptor that can block the effects of this growth factor in the vessel wall, the fibrosis leading to shrinking of the artery could be markedly inhibited. Several novel genes involved in growth of vascular cells and the arterial response to injury are currently being characterized.

Publications

• Landry, D.B., L.L. Couper, S.R. Bryant, and V. Lindner. 1997. Activation of the NF-kappa B and Ikappa B system in smooth muscle cells following rat arterial injury: Induction of VCAM-1 and MCP-1. Am.J.Pathol. 151:1085-1095
• Couper, L.L., S.R. Bryant, J. Eldrup-J?rgensen, C.E. Bredenberg, and V. Lindner. 1997. Vascular endothelial growth factor increases the mitogenic response to fibroblast growth factor-2 in vascular smooth muscle cells in vivo via expression of fms- like tyrosine kinase-1. Circ. Res. 81:932-939
• Bryant, S.R., R.J. Bjercke, D.A. Erichsen, A. Rege, and V. Lindner. 1999. Vascular remodeling in response to altered blood flow is mediated by fibroblast growth factor-2. Circ.Res. 84:323-328
• Smith, J.D., S.R. Bryant, L.L. Couper,, C.P.H. Vary, P.J. Gotwals, V.E. Koteliansky, and V. Lindner. 1999. Soluble TGF-beta type II receptor inhibits intimal lesion formation and negative remodeling but not endothelial regeneration in injured arteries. Circ.Res. 84:1212-1222
• Harmon, K.J., L.L. Couper, and V. Lindner. 2000. Strain-dependent vascular remodeling phenotypes in inbred mice. Am.J.Pathol. 156(5):1741-8.

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