The Hypertension and Vascular Research Division occupies approximately 8700 square feet of space in the Benson Ford Education and Research Building adjacent to Henry Ford Hospital. This space is loosely divided into areas of research ranging from molecular biology to in vivo physiology. The in vivo physiology laboratories include a full complement of equipment necessary for the complete study of parameters that influence blood pressure and end organ damage, including non-invasive echocardiography of mice. In vitro physiology and biophysics laboratories include equipment for measurement of ion fluxes, electrophysiology, intracellular ions, vascular reactivity and intracellular trafficking via confocal microscopy. Molecular biology laboratories include equipment for RT-PCR, sequencing and gene transfer both in vitro and in vivo.
In addition to the laboratory space of the 8 senior faculty members, the Division has a number of dedicated work areas including a cell culture room, a BSL2 room for adenovirus work, a darkroom, and an imaging center. The research of the faculty is also supported by several core facilities. These cores remove the burden of day-to-day administrative and methodological concerns from the faculty, allowing them to focus their time and energy directly on their experiments. Cores include administration (grant management, personnel), histology, ligand assay (ELISA, RIA), mutant mouse breeding and analysis of knockout and transgenic mice, and biostatistics (protocol design, justification of sample size, data analysis).
