Ulvi Bayraktutan
Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences
Current Research
My current interests focus on the investigation of the mechanisms that account for the breakdown and recovery of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) under ischaemic and hyperglycaemic versus their respective control conditions with particular reference to
1. overall intracellular oxidative stress status as determined by putative differences in the expression and activity of nitric oxide synthases and antioxidant enzymes, namely superoxide dismutases, catalase and glutathione peroxidase,
2. variations in the levels of the adhesion molecules in particular ICAM-1 and VCAM-1,
3. involvements of signal transduction pathways, including protein kinase C and p38MAPK as well as transcription factors such as NF-kappaB,
4. modulation of endothelial cell shape and endothelial-astrocytic cell interactions,
5. regulation of small GTP-binding proteins including RhoA and
6. regulation of plasminogen-plasmin system as a whole and its specific components such as tPA and PAI-1.
Future Research
The futures studies will focus on
1. investigation of the relative contributions of risk factors for vascular diseases including oxidative stress and inflammation to formation and progression of ischaemic stroke.
2. the conventional and alternative treatment regimens of endothelial dysfunction in diseases with vascular complications including hypertension and stroke.
3. the discovery of reliable clinical biomarkers for the diagnosis and/or prognosis of stroke in general or its subtypes.