Focus on vascular pharmacology

At the joint meeting of the British Pharmacological Society and the Danish Society for Pharmacology and Toxicology, held July 6-8, 2004, in Bath, United Kingdom, the focus was vascular pharmacology. In the symposium on signaling pathways in vascular muscle, the topics included were the molecular structure of G-protein-coupled receptors, phosphoinositides and other lipid messengers, the regulation of vascular contractility by cyclic nucleotides, Ca(2+) channels in the kidney vasculature, conducted vascular responses and intracellular signaling in smooth muscle cell growth. Endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor was the subject of a symposium and many of the communications. There was discussion whether epoxyeicosatrienoic acids, K(+), C-type natriuretic peptide, hydrogen peroxide or gap junction were endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor. In the J.R. Vane Medal Lecture, Prof. P. Vanhoutte discussed endothelial dysfunction, and in the Anglo-Nordic Lecture, Prof. M. Mulvany discussed the pharmacology of hypertension. Finally, there was some discussion of whether antihypertensive drug response can be predicted on the basis of DNA microsequencing.