Aim

This course is free of charge for PhD students at Danish universities (except Copenhagen Business School), and for PhD Students from NorDoc member faculties. All other participants must pay the course fee.

Anyone can apply for the course, but if you are not a PhD student at a Danish university, you will be placed on the waiting list until enrollment deadline. This also applies to PhD students from NorDoc member faculties. After the enrollment deadline, available seats will be allocated to applicants on the waiting list.

Programme

You can find the programme here.

Learning objectives 

A student who has met the objectives of the course will be able to:

1. Demonstrate a broad overview of vascular function.

2. Put into perspective their own research topic in the context of broad vascular function.

3. Obtain an overview of several cells types in the vascular wall, including smooth muscle, endothelial, perivascular adipose cells.

4. Understand the importance of the spatial and temporal control of calcium for vascular function.

5. Analyse topical pro and con arguments in the field of vascular physiology, and demonstrate an ability to present these arguments in the form of a debate.

6. Consider the implications of arterial remodeling in the context of vascular disease.

Content

This course will cover basic vascular function from a broad physiological perspective through to highlighting the importance of multiple cell types found in the vascular wall. The programme will take the student from an overview of the whole vascular network, showing how it meets the demands of the body, through to focused lectures on ion channels and the spatial and temporal control of calcium in regulating vascular tone. The importance of endothelial cells and perivascular adipose tissue will be emphasised, as well as the role of capillaries. Finally the course will introduce arterial remodelling, how it occurs and the impact of remodelling on vascular function and health.

The students will be engaged in several lectures from international experts covering these topics, and also contribute by addressing some of the key vascular-related issues being discussed today. To do this, the students will be placed into groups of 4-5 persons ~3 weeks before the start of the meeting and given a topic (with related papers) to analyse, discuss and prepare a presentation. Half the group will present and argue for the pro argument and the other half will argue for the con arguments. The topics the students will be asked to debate on include:

• Will genome-wide association studies unlock the genetic basis of hypertension?
• Should there be a universal blood pressure goal of <130/80 mmHg?
• Is nighttime blood pressure important?

Who can attend?

Students should be engaged in vascular research. Both basic and clinical PhD researchers will benefit from attending this course.

Relevance to graduate programmes.

The course is relevant to PhD students from the following graduate programmes at the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences, UCPH:

• Cardiovascular Research
• Medicine, Culture and Society
• Molecular Mechanisms of Disease

Teachers 

• Thomas Jepps, Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, UCPH
• Christian Aalkjær, Professor, Aarhus University
• Manuel Navedo, Professor, University of California, Davis
• Camilla Wenceslau, Professor, University of South Carolina
• Mark Nelson, Professor, University of Vermont
• Sophie Saxton, Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester
• Ed van Bavel, Professor, University of Amsterdam

Registration 

Seats to PhD students from other Danish universities will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and according to the applicable rules. Applications from other participants will be considered after the last day of enrolment.

Note: All applicants are asked to submit invoice details in case of no-show, late cancellation or obligation to pay the course fee (typically non-PhD students). If you are a PhD student, your participation in the course must be in agreement with your principal supervisor.