Department of Medicine

Cardiovascular Medicine Faculty

Training:

Academic Interests:

Dr. Lucas moved to the University of Florida in 2006_ from the Robarts Research Institute and University of Western Ontario in London ,Ontario, Canada, where she has been a principal investigator studying inflammation, specifically monocyte and T lymphocyte activation in vascular disease. Dr. Lucas is also co-inventor and co-founding scientist for Viron Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company that is now in clinical trial analyzing viral anti-inflammatory proteins as a new class of therapeutic agents.  Dr. Lucas is a practicing interventional cardiologist in addition to running an active basic research lab in vascular inflammatory research with bovver 100 paper and reviews and 16 patents published.  She has been an active member of the Canadian Society for Atherosclerosis and Thrombosis Board having also served as Editor-in-Chief  and serves on the American Heart Association grant panel.  She is additionally on the editorial board for several journals.  Dr. Lucas also directs an annual medical mission to Fte. Liberté in Haiti.

Basic Science and Clinical Interests:

Vascular innate immune responses, unstable plaque, acute coronary syndromes, transplant vasculopathy, vasculitis, T lymphocyte, monocyte / macrophage, serpins, chemokines, apoptosis, optical analysis of vascular disease, interventional cardiology.

Representative Publications:

• Lucas AR, and McFadden G. Secreted immunomodulatory viral proteins as novel biotherapeutics. Immunology 2004;173: 4765-74.
• Dai E, Viswanathan K, Sun YM, Li X, Liu L, Togonu-Bickersteth B, Richardson J, Macaulay C, Nash P, Turner P, Nazarian S, Moyer R, McFadden G, Lucas AR. Identification of myxomaviral serpin reactive site loop sequences that regulate innate immune responses. J Biol Chem 2006, 281(12):8041-8050.
• Viswanathan K, Liu L, Vaziri S, Richardson J, Togonu-Bickersteth B, Vatsya P, Christov A, and Lucas AR. Myxoma viral serpin, Serp-1, a unique interceptor of coagulation and innate immune pathways. Thromb Haemost 2006, 95:499-510.
• Liu LY, Lalani A, Dai E, Seet B, Macauley C, Singh R, Fan L, McFadden G, Lucas AR: A viral anti-inflammatory chemokine binding protein, M-T7, reduces intimal hyperplasia after vascular injury. J Clin Invest 2000;105:1613-1621.
• Christov A, Korol R, Dai E, Liu L, Guan H, Bernards MA, Cavers PB, Susko D, Lucas AR. In vivo optical analysis of quantitative change in collagen and elastin during arterial remodeling.. Photochem Photobiol 2005, 81: 457-466.
• Lucas A, Korol R, Pepine C. Inflammation in Atherosclerosis. Circulation 2006, 113:(in press).
• Viswanathan K, Bot I, Liu L, Dai E, Turner PC, Togonu-Bickersteth J, Pang B, Li Y, Biessen EA, Moyer R and Lucas AR. Viral cross-class serpin inhibits apoptosis, inflammation and atherosclerosis. In Modulation of Atherothrombotic Factors: Novel Strategies for Plaque Stabilization. Print Partners Ipstamp, Enschede, The Netherlands 2005:pg 61-76. Published as part of a Thesis submission by Ilze Bot.
• Viswanathan K, Richardson J, Togonu-Bickersteth B, Dai E, Liu L, Vatsya P, Sun Y,  Yu J, Munuswamy-Ramunajam G, Baker H, Lucas AR. Myxoma Viral Serpin, Serp-1, Inhibits Human Monocyte Activation Through Regulation of Actin Binding Protein Filamin B. Journal of Leukocyte Biology, 2009; 85: 418-426.
• Bartee MY, Dai E, Liu L, Munuswamy-Ramanujam G, Macaulay C, McIvor D, McFadden G,. Lucas AR . M-T7: Measuring Chemokine-Modulating Activity.  Methods in Enzymology, Chapter 10; Vol. 460, 2009: 209-228.
  

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