Profile of Richard Schulz, PhD
Professor
Department of Pediatrics
462 Heritage Medical Research Centre
University of Alberta
Edmonton AB T6G 2S2
Tel: 780.492.6581
Fax: 780.492.9753
Research
The Schulz lab expertise is in cardiovascular pharmacology and pathophysiology, particularly in relation to oxidative stress. We are interested in the roles of nitric oxide (NO), superoxide and peroxynitrite in cardiac injury relating to activation of the immune system as well as in myocardial ischemia and reperfusion injury. To this we are testing novel drugs which interfere with specific free radical species or the pathways which generate them, or finding ways to specifically enhance antioxidant defenses. We are also investigating the targets of peroxynitrite-induced toxicity, one of these being the activation of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) within the cardiac myocyte. We have found novel intracellular targets and actions of the MMPs in relation to cardiac disease (ischemia-reperfusion injury, pro-inflammatory cytokine stress), and novel protective actions in the cardiovascular system of drugs which inhibit MMP activity. A major recent finding from my lab is that MMP-2 co-localizes with and is responsible for the degradation of the contractile protein regulatory element troponin I in both ischemia-reperfusion and in pro-inflammatory cytokine stress related injury in the heart. Finally my lab also investigates the control of vascular tone through NO, MMPs and other related pathways, both in health and disease.
