Vascular Pharmacology: Smooth Muscle

Dr. Raouf Khalil is an MD PhD who is very interested in scientific research. After receiving his MD, he joined the graduate school and received his PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Miami, Florida. After doing postdoctoral training at Harvard University, he joined the faculty at University of Mississippi Medical Center. He then moved back to Harvard where he is now Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Dr. Khalil has long been interested in vascular physiology and cell biology. The main focus of his research laboratory is to study the cellular mechanisms of vascular tone under physiological conditions and the changes in these mechanisms in pathological conditions such as coronary artery disease, salt-sensitive hypertension, hypertension in pregnancy, preeclampsia, pulmonary hypertension, and chronic venous disease. State-of-the-art equipment to study various aspects of the vascular system at the whole animal, tissue, cellular, and molecular level are available in his laboratory. Powerful techniques such as physiological bioassays, radioimmunoassays, mRNA and protein analysis, cell and organ culture, immunofluorescence, digital imaging and confocal microscopy are also available. Dr. Khalil's research projects include investigation of endothelium-dependent mechanisms of vascular relaxation, calcium-dependent and calcium-independent mechanisms of vascular and uterine contraction, role of protein kinases and phosphatases in vascular and uterine smooth muscle contraction, mechanisms of sex differences in vascular tone, the role of endothelin in salt-sensitive hypertension, and the role of matrix metalloproteinases in hypertension in pregnancy, preeclampsia, pulmonary hypertension, and chronic venous disease.