Christopher Kevil, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Research, Dean, School of Graduate Studies
Director / Principal Investigator, Center for Redox Biology and Cardiovascular Disease COBRE, Louisiana
Professor, Departments of Pathology, Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and Cellular Biology and Anatomy

Dr. Chris Kevil has been awarded a five-year $10.5 million Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant by the National Institutes of Health.  He is the principal investigator of the project that will advance understanding of redox regulation of cardiovascular disease.

Research: Work from our laboratory has published new insights into how the gasotransmitter hydrogen sulfide (H2S) regulates ischemic vascular remodeling and how its metabolites are affected during clinical cardiovascular disease.

While the field of H2S biomedical research has grown, many key gaps remain in understanding how sulfide metabolites are formed in the vasculature and

their ultimate fate. In brief, our team revealed that H2S bioavailability quickly increases during chronic vascular/tissue ischemia contributing to a compensatory increase in nitric oxide levels. We further found that hydrogen sulfide-dependent nitric oxide (NO) enhancement occurs in a dual fashion through its generation by nitric oxide synthases and by stimulation of nitrite reduction back to NO in a xanthine oxidase-dependent manner.