Bones, Brains & Blood Vessels

Profile:

Graduate of UCD 1987 and did his house jobs at the Mater Dublin before taking an MSc in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Aberdeen. He worked as Registrar in Medicine at Aberdeen Teaching Hospitals and took his MD thesis at The University of Aberdeen in 1992. He moved to King’s College Hospital London in 1994 as Lecturer and subsequently Senior Lecturer in Medicine for Elderly & Honorary Consultant Physician. He moved to his current post in his native Limerick in 1997. He is chairman of the Expert Advisory Group on Ageing to the HSE.
Research interests are in the areas of pharmacology of ageing and vascular pharmacology with particular clinical research interests in syncope, hypertension, nitric oxide biology, osteoporosis and osteovascular instability. Previous projects have assessed the effect of blood pressure normalisation on nitric oxide dependent vasodilatation in hypertension, the effect of ageing on nitric oxide mediated and sympathetically mediated vasoactivity, the interaction between the renin angiotensin and sympathetic nervous systems, tissue actions of ACE inhibitors and characterisation of age related vascular changes in health, hypertension and stroke. Current work has centred on the elucidation of the pathogenic mechanisms that underlie various syncopal syndromes eg orthostatic hypotension, variants of carotid sinus syndrome. More recently a common pathogenic relationship between bone strength, skeletal muscle activity and blood vessel function in old age (osteovascular instability) is the subject several studies by Prof Lyons’ group.