Biography

Cardiovascular disease and cancer remain the most prevalent causes of morbidity and mortality. The pathogenesis of these and a myriad of other inflammatory, proliferative, migratory and autoimmune diseases are underpinned by molecular and cellular changes in our blood vessels. Professor Levon Khachigian’s research is uncovering key networks of transcriptional control and inducible gene-regulatory circuits that lead to vascular disease. Building on these mechanistic insights, his group is developing new experimental drugs that have the potential to treat a myriad of health problems, from cancer and arthritis through to eye and heart disease.

Professor Khachigian heads the Vascular Biology and Translational Research Laboratory within the School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Faculty of Medicine. His research program sits within UNSW Medicine’s Thematic Areas of Triple I (Infection, Immunity & Inflammation) and Cancer, and has two major objectives:

1. To better understand how potentially harmful genes are controlled in vascular cells. This arm investigates signalling and transcriptional mechanisms of growth factor and pro-inflammatory cytokine-dependent gene expression, post-translational mechanisms that modify protein behaviour, isolation and characterization of new genes that are induced or repressed by acute vascular cell injury, and the molecular control of vascular cell migration and proliferation. The group has considerable expertise in animal models of neointima formation, angiogenesis, tumour growth, myocardial ischemia and inflammatory disease.

2. To develop novel vascular therapeutic agents. The lab is harnessing the outcomes of its fundamental research by pioneering the development of novel “anti-gene” (e.g. DNAzyme, siRNA, microRNA) and “gene-therapeutic” strategies targeting regulatory genes in experimental vascular diseases. The group is also actively developing new small molecule pharmacologic agents. This involves in-house laboratory research and strategic national and international collaborations with a range of clinical and preclinical specialists, global contract research organisations, leading industrial medicinal chemists and drug development consultants.

Professor Khachigian's website is: https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-levon-michael-khachigian