The Swedish Society of Medicine (SLS) awards researchers John Pernow and Aida Collado Sánchez at Karolinska Institutet with the Alvarenga Prize 2024. The laureates are rewarded for a research article on a study that shows a new cause behind vascular complications in type 2 diabetes and possible future treatment to prevent this.
The Alvarenga Prize rewards "unpublished articles submitted to the competition on topics pertaining to the field of medical research".
Laureates John Pernow and Aida Collado Sánchez, professor and postdoctoral researcher respectively at the Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet, are awarded for the article: "Erythrocyte-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Induce Endothelial Dysfunction through Arginase 1 and Oxidative Stress in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes".
Cardiovascular complications in type 2 diabetes
It is already known that patients with type 2 diabetes often suffer from cardiovascular complications in the form of heart attacks and strokes.
The cause is largely unknown. The research group at Karolinska Institutet has previously shown that the red blood cells, the erythrocytes, are altered in patients with type 2 diabetes, which causes vascular damage. How the erythrocytes cause these vascular damage has not been known.
In the current study, the research team shows that erythrocytes from patients with type 2 diabetes form and release small membrane vesicles, which are transported to the blood vessel wall.
The membrane vesicles from the erythrocytes contain a variety of different signaling molecules and accumulate in the cells of the vessel wall.
"Our results show that one of the signalling molecules transported to the vessel wall causes the formation of harmful free oxygen radicals in the blood vessel wall and reduced ability of the blood vessel to dilate. We have also been able to show that treatments aimed at the uptake of membrane vesicles in the blood vessel wall and inhibition of the transported signaling molecule counteract the harmful effects of erythrocyte membrane vesicles on the blood vessels," says the research leader John Pernow, professor of cardiology at the Department of Medicine, Solna, and chief physician at Karolinska University Hospital. "These findings reveal a new cause behind vascular complications in diabetes and open up for possible future treatments to counteract vascular complications in type 2 diabetes."
The study is funded by research funds from the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, Karolinska Institutet and Region Stockholm (ALF).
The prize will be awarded during the Swedish Society of Medicine's Annual Ceremony on 22 October 2024. The prize winners are rewarded with SEK 50,000.
About Alvarenga's prize
Alvarenga's prize fund, was established by will of the Swedish Society of Medicine, a deceased member in 1883, the professor in Lisbon, doctor of medicine Pedro Francesco da Costa Alvarenga. The prize rewards valuable, "unpublished articles written by Swedish citizens, submitted to the competition on topics belonging to the field of medical research".
Source: SLS
