Wayne State research fellow wins Young Investigator Award

DETROIT (Nov. 30, 2012) - Saptarshi Kar, a post-doctoral research fellow in the Wayne State University Department of Biomedical Engineering, won the Young Investigator Award at the Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine annual meeting in San Diego, Calif., Nov. 14-18.

Meeting attendees included scientists from around the world working in fundamental and translational research related to the role of free radical biology in cardiovascular diseases, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and gastrointestinal diseases.

Kar's presentation, "Exploring the Role of SOD during eNOS Uncoupling through a Computational Approach," was selected for the award from a highly competitive pool of approximately 600 abstract submissions. His research uses a systems biology approach to understand the mixed results obtained from clinical studies of therapeutic molecules and anti-oxidant supplementation for treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

The results of his work have been used to maximize the therapeutic efficiency of antioxidants for treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Kar's research is supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (grant number R01 HL084337) to his mentor, Mahendra Kavdia, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering at Wayne State. Together they are working to understand the mechanisms related to endothelial dysfunction in cardiovascular diseases.

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Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution offering 370 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 29,000 students. For more information about engineering at Wayne State University, visit engineering.wayne.edu.