Dr Michael Emerson

2012 pump priming award recipient

Dr Michael Emerson, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London

Pharmacological manipulation of nitric oxide signalling downstream of inorganic nitrate as a potential anti-platelet strategy during endothelial dysfunction. My pump priming grant from the British Pharmacological Society will be enable me to conduct in vivo experiments to determine the ability of dietary nitrate to be harnessed pharmacologically and so inhibit platelet function and potentially exert anti-thrombotic activity.

My grant will fund critical in vivo experiments using a model of platelet thromboembolism established in my laboratory under an NC3Rs award to demonstrate the ability of nitrate to exert the hypothesised anti-platelet effect.

The data acquired through this project will be used as preliminary data in a project grant application to the British Heart Foundation.