Dr. Kenneth Walsh received his PhD in Biochemistry in 1984 working with Daniel Koshland at the University of California, Berkeley. He then took a postdoctoral position with Paul Schimmel at MIT where he studied regulation of the actin promoter in muscle cells. He took his first faculty position at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in the Departments of Physiology and Biophysics, and Biochemistry. In 1993, Dr. Walsh became Program Director for the Division of Cardiovascular Research at St Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston. He then joined the faculty at Tufts University School of Medicine where he worked his way up through the ranks to full Professor. Since 2001, Dr. Walsh has been Head of the Molecular Cardiology Unit, Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute at Boston University School of Medicine.

One major focus of research in the Walsh laboratory is analysis of the PI3-kinase/Akt/GSK/Forkhead signaling axis and its roles in regulating organ growth and body size. Signaling through this pathway controls cellular enlargement (hypertrophy), cell death (apoptosis), and blood vessel recruitment and growth (angiogenesis). Specifically, Dr. Walsh's group has shown that the PI3-kinase/Akt/GSK/Forkhead signaling axis regulates multiple steps critical in angiogenesis including endothelial cell apoptosis, differentiation, nitric oxide production and migration. His work has also shown that signaling steps involving vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) are important for cardiac hypertrophy during normal postnatal development and also regulate survival in animal models of heart disease.

Another major research focus involves the adipose-derived signaling protein adiponectin. This signaling molecule circulates in the plasma with potent anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory and anti-hypertensive actions. Dr. Walsh's group has also demonstrated potent cardioprotective actions of adiponectin including inhibition of cardiac remodeling during the transition from hypertrophy to heart failure and protection against cardiac ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Dr. Walsh is Associate Editor of the American Heart Association journal Circulation, and has published well over 200 scientific papers in his career.

More information on Dr. Walsh can be found at: http://www.kwalshlab.org/kxwalsh.php

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