Alison is a Professor of Pharmacology at the University ofManchester and is an internationally recognised authority in Pulmonary Hypertension, or raised blood pressure in the lungs. This is a disease with a very poor prognosis and one associated with constriction and remodelling of the small arteries within the lung.
As the diameter of small arteries is crucial to determining the resistance to blood flow and blood pressure, Alison is interested in identifying mechanisms that regulate the diameter of pulmonary arteries which can potentially be targeted by drugs acting to lower pulmonary arterial pressure. Alison has particular interest in the ion channels found in the plasma membranes of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells. Her work investigates the physiological roles and pharmacology of specific ion channels in these cells. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to investigating ion channel expression and function, using small-vessel wire myography to investigate constriction in intact vessels, electrophysiology to study the biophysics and pharmacology of ionic currents carried through the channels, fluorescent Calcium imaging to link channel activity and contraction to the regulation of Ca2+ signalling and molecular techniques to study and manipulate the expression of particualar channels. Alison’s contributions to this field include the discovery of KATP channels and the two-pore domain channel, TASK-1, as regulators of smooth muscle membrane potential and pulmonary artery tone. Alison also identified IP3-induced Ca2+ release as the site of action of the vasodilator, hydralazine and demonstrated that potassium channel expression is modulated in pulmonary hypertension and following birth, when the pulmonary circulation begins to function in gas exchange.
Microvascular @ Manchester 