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Robert Raffai, PhD

Principal Investigator, Atherosclerosis Research Lab
Professor of Surgery
Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery
Research Career Scientist 
Department of Veterans Affairs

Extracellular Vesicles and Metabolic Regulation of Immunity in Atherosclerosis & Cardiometabolic Diseases 

Our research program investigates the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) including exosomes as biomarkers and effectors in the pathogenesis of cardiometabolic diseases. Our teams’ recent studies pioneered the study of hyperglycemia and cytokine signaling in modulating the regulated release of microRNA from macrophages into exosomes. Our findings provided the first evidence documenting a role for high glucose-exposed macrophage exosomes as contributors to cardiovascular inflammation and atherosclerosis in diabetes. They also demonstrated that exosomes produced by IL4-exposed macrophages can serve to overcome cardiometabolic inflammation, improve insulin resistance, and resolve atherosclerosis in obese diabetic mice. 

Our ongoing studies point to ApoE and as a critical modulators of exosome inflammatory activity in the cardiovascular and neurologic systems. We are interested to know if ApoE4 causes macrophages and microglial cells to produce exosomes that can accelerate inflammation and pathologies in these compartments. Our long-term goal is to develop macrophage exosomes as novel therapeutics to control human cardiometabolic and neuroinflammatory diseases. 

BREAKING NEWS

Research
Raffai Lab About US

Our laboratory pioneered novel approaches to isolate Exosomes from conditioned cell culture media and biofluids for their subsequent study as biomarkers and contributors to cardiovascular inflammation and atherosclerosis.

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Recent Publications

  1. nSMase2-mediated exosome secretion shapes the tumor microenvironment to immunologically support pancreatic cancer.
    2024 | PubMed
  2. M2 Macrophage Exosomes Reverse Cardiac Functional Decline in Mice with Diet-Induced Myocardial Infarction by Suppressing Type 1 Interferon Signaling in Myeloid Cells.
    2024 | PubMed
  3. Abstract A066: nSMase2-mediated exosome secretion shapes the tumor microenvironment to immunologically support pancreatic cancer.
    2024 | UCSF Research Profile
  4. Comparison of EV characterization by commercial high-sensitivity flow cytometers and a custom single-molecule flow cytometer.
    2024 | PubMed
  5. Label-free single-vesicle based surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy: A robust approach for investigating the biomolecular composition of small extracellular vesicles.
    2024 | PubMed

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