Summary of area of research.
Dr. Alexander is an cardiovascular biologist working on how small blood vessels become injured during the process of inflammation. Several diseases including stroke, cancer, Crohn's disease and diabetes are associated with disturbances in how blood vessels restrict exchange of their contents, leading to the development of edema. Our current models indicate the dysregulation of several classes of junctional molecules (tight or occludens junctions, adherens junctions and complexus adherents junctions) mediate the elevated exchange of solute proteins and inflammatory cells during active inflammation. A new and important direction in this area of research is the development of models which consider the lymphatic system and the growth of lymphatic endothelial cells which is known to participate in tumor cell metastasis, but also acute and chronic inflammation.