Raj K. Gupta, Ph.D.

Professor
Office: MRRC 314
Tel: 718-430-2729
Email: rgupta@aecom.yu.edu

Our long-range goal is to elucidate the role of intracellular mineral ions and oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of essential hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Our main research tool is NMR spectroscopy, a biophysical technique that combines the advantages of noninvasiveness and high specificity for measuring intracellular mineral ions. Oxidative stress, which may play a contributory role in the pathogenesis of diabetes as well as hypertension, causes membrane lipid peroxidation resulting in a loss of fatty acid double bonds. The latter can be monitored by 1H NMR and provides a measure of the extent of oxidative stress. Our specific aims are (1) to investigate the role of altered renal sodium homeostasis in salt-sensitive hypertension; (2) to demonstrate that oxidative stress, which results in overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS), can cause loss of unsaturation in membrane fatty acyl chains; (3) to investigate a possible protective role of magnesium against oxidative stress, (4) to test the hypothesis that a deficit in membrane fatty acid unsaturation and an alteration in sphingomyelin-ceramide pathway is associated with human hypertension; (5) to investigate increased vulnerability of hypertensive as well as diabetic kidney and myocardium to ischemic damage and its relationship to increased peroxidative degradation of membrane lipids. Investigations of intracellular ions and membrane lipids in hypertension and uncontrolled hyperglycemia may eventually lead to better strategies for the management of these health disorders.