Grant: Operating Grant - PA: Regional Partnership Program - Newfoundland and Labrador

The goal of my research is to understand the mechanisms that are involved in producing hemorrhagic stroke and to try to develop treatment therapies that can be used to help prevent death and disability after this stroke develops. There is a special breed of rats that I possess (SHRsp) that develop hemorrhagic stroke at a very young age. Like humans, when these rats develop hemorrhagic stroke they end up dying within one and a half weeks. I have found that if you treat these rats after stroke with drugs which either prevent the formation of a molecule call AII (captopril) or alternatively with a drug that prevents AII from acting on the cells (losartan) then the rats will not die. They recover from stroke and look normal. The drug that prevents AII from acting on the cells (losartan) works much better than the drug that prevents the formation of AII (captopril). My research is aimed at trying to understand the role that AII plays in promoting stroke and death after stroke and to further understand how the two drugs act to prevent death and disability after hemorrhagic stroke. In addition I want to understand why one drug works better than the other with the hope that I can develop the best therapy for this type of stroke.