Circulating nano-sized extracellular vesicles (EVs) hold tremendous potential to diagnose and treat CVDs. EVs carry specific information and are responsible for efficient intercellular communication that is important in many physiological processes and their content perturbed in the progression of several diseases, including CVD. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death worldwide.
This project will develop our unique strategies to define circulating EVs, their proteome and phosphoproteome landscape, and their utility as biomarkers in the context of CAD progression. Moreover, biological functions of specific molecular targets in EVs will be investigated to further our understanding of the progression of CAD.