Abstract
Angiogenesis is the formation of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones and it is an important process in health and disease. Examples in which angiogenesis participate in disease are cancer and retinopathy, a important cause for blindness in adults. Retinopathy of prematurity or in diabetes, as well as macula degeneration have an important angiogenic component. These diseases afflict people of all ages, classes and races, and have an important impact on Brazilian population because many of individuals affected by these disease are in their most productive period. Drugs that prevent angiogenesis have shown promising results for the treatment of cancer and retinopathies. In this new project, we propose to extend studies from our laboratory on receptor tyrosine kinases involved in angiogenesis and focus on the orphan receptor from the Tie family. And in a new line of study, determine the transcriptome of the angiogenic retina to identify new targets for drug development using our combinatorial peptide libraries. In summary, we hope to identify a new ligand for an important angiogenic receptor (Tie1) and by genomic approaches, increase our knowledge on number of molecular targets for the development of novel therapeutic approaches for diseases with an angiogenic component. (AU)