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This part of the website aims to introduce some of the major research themes were are working on. We are interested in how the gas nitric oxide plays a role in human health and disease. The first few sections on nitric oxide are aimed at a general audience, while the other sections in the introduction get more specialised and detailed.
We are particularly interested in how nitric oxide controls a process called apoptosis, which is a form of programmed cell death otherwise known as cell suicide and a general introduction to this process is given, along with more detailed information for those interested. Finally we are also interested in how nitric oxide controls cell movement and migration and some background information on this is provided.
Nitric Oxide was the first gas discovered to play a biological role in humans and this discovery won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1998. You can read a little bit about the history of the early nitric oxide research here.
Since it was discovered that NO plays an important role in the relaxation of blood vessels many new roles have been discovered for it. These include important roles in the immune system, the nervous system and the reproductive system as well as other important roles in the cardiovascular system. You can read more about the these roles in this section.
Since NO plays such an important role in many biological systems it is no surprise that it is of considerable interest in medicine. Drugs have been developed to treat many diseases based on our understanding of how nitric oxide works in the body. In addition it is now known that NO plays an important role in the progression of many diseases including cancer and autoimmune diseases. More information about its role in medicine can be found here.
Website by Phil Dash