UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Lacy Alexander, associate professor of kinesiology at Penn State, will present "Your Skin as a Window into Vascular Health" at the 2018 Pattishall Research Lecture.
The lecture, sponsored by the College of Health and Human Development, will be given at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, March 28, in the Bennett Pierce Living Center, 110 Henderson Building, on the University Park campus. A reception will be held prior to the remarks at 3:30 p.m. in the same location. It is free and open to the public.
Alexander will discuss the regulation of skin blood flow in health and disease. The focus of her talk will include pharmacological and lifestyle interventions that impact vascular health.
"The leading cause of death in developed countries is cardiovascular disease. My work aims to understand the earliest indicators of cardiovascular disease, as this is an important opportunity for implementing intervention strategies to combat the advancement of disease," Alexander said. "There have been countless scientific advances at the molecular and cellular level of inquiry, but it is challenging to translate these advances from the bench to the bedside. My work helps to do this by translating what we know about how cardiovascular disease manifests in animals to testing these mechanisms in human subjects."
Alexander's research involves using skin circulation as a model for examining mechanisms of microvascular dysfunction in cardiovascular disease.
The Pattishall Research Lecture is delivered each year by the most recent recipient of the Pattishall Outstanding Research Achievement Award, which honors a senior faculty member who has made outstanding research contributions to the field across a major portion of his or her career. The award was established by the late Evan Pattishall, who served as dean of the former College of Human Development, and his wife, Helen.