Tomas Vaisar, PhD
Research Associate Professor
UW Medicine Diabetes Institute
Department of Medicine
Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition
Email Address: tvaisar (at) uw.edu
Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition
Website: http://depts.washington.edu/metab/
Tomas Vaisar received his PhD at the Institute
of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague,
Czech Republic in 1992 in the area of Organic Chemistry focusing on gas phase
ion chemistry and mass spectrometry. After 9 years in biotech industry, in 2002
he joined the laboratory of Dr. Jay W. Heinecke at the University of
Washington, Seattle. In 2005 he was appointed to the faculty and is currently a
Research Associate Professor at the Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology
and at the UW Medicine Diabetes Institute at the University of Washington. He
serves as the Director of the Diabetes Research Center Quantitative and Functional
Proteomics Core.
Research Interests:
Dr. Vaisar’s research focuses on examining the role of metabolic diseases in the development and progression of cardiovascular disease. Specifically, his research centers on the relation of diabetes, lipoproteins metabolism and the role lipoproteins
in the accelerated development of cardiovascular disease in diabetes. His research further focuses on application of state-of-the-art quantitative mass spectrometric techniques to basic, translational as well as clinical studies.
Current projects:
• HDL as a carrier
of biomarkers of cardiovascular disease. This project focuses on
development and application of quantitative proteomic methods to discovery of
biomarkers of cardiovascular disease. Unlike whole plasma, HDL is a
simple proteome of up to 100 proteins which is in the causal pathway of
cardiovascular disease. Quantitative assessment of HDL proteome can therefore
provide biomarkers for disease diagnosis as well as markers of therapeutic
intervention efficacy.
• Role of diabetes
and inflammation in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease with
particular focus on the role of HDL and its interactions with cells in the atherosclerotic
lesions (macrophages, endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells). Inflammation
is one of the hallmarks of atherosclerosis and is associated with major changes
in the HDL protein composition, activation of cells in the arterial wall, and
increased production of proteases in the atherosclerotic lesions. We are addressing
questions of how the changes in HDL composition affect its anti-atherogenic properties and what is the role of proteolysis
in the progression of atherosclerosis.
To address these questions his lab is using
state of the art techniques including functional assessment of the HDL in
macrophages and endothelial cells, lipoprotein particle analysis (HDL-P) using calibrated
differential ion mobility analysis (cIMA) for direct lipoprotein
particle measurement, and targeted quantitative methods for lipoprotein
proteome analysis.
• Applications
of quantitative proteomics to clinical and translational studies. This
research focuses on development of quantitative liquid chromatography/tandem
mass spectrometry based assays (SRM-LCMS, Data-independent analysis, DIA) for
quantification of proteins in lipoproteins, blood, as well as in urine, for
discovery and validation as biomarkers of diabetes accelerated cardiovascular
disease and diabetic kidney disease.
How
can this research help people with diabetes?
Identification of the mechanisms by which diabetes
accelerates cardiovascular disease, and biomarkers predicting the risk of
developing CVD will lead to early detection of the CVD risk and novel treatments
for prevention of cardiovascular complications of diabetes.
Complete list of publications
HDL PROTEOME WEBPAGE