Department of Angiology

Inselspital Bern

The research activities of the Department focus on congenital vascular malformations, risk factors, and their modulation in peripheral artery disease, atherosclerosis, and atherothrombosis.

To the Inselspital website

Senior Physician, Head of Angiology

Prof. Marc Schindewolf

Profile

  • Teaching programs, student lectures and courses (clinical skills), PBL, weekly internal & Medical Division Cardiovascular lectures
  • Research projects comprise analysis, classification and computational hemodynamic modeling of congenital vascular malformations, risk factor analysis, and risk factor modulating therapies in peripheral artery disease, basic atherosclerosis and atherothrombosis research, integration of omics technologies in research of vascular malformations and atherosclerosis, drug therapy, and endovascular management of venous thromboembolism.

External Partners

  • Switzerland: Department of Angiology from University Hospital Basel & University Hospital Zürich; Cantonal Hospital Luzern; Department of Vascular Surgery, Cantonal Hospital St.Gallen; Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne
  • Germany: Institute for Cardiovascular Prevention, University Hospital LMU Munich; West German Morbus Osler Center, University Hospital Essen; Department for Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, LMU Munich; Center of Cardiology & Angiology, University Medical Center Mainz
  • USA: Heart and Vascular Center, University Hospital Denver, Colorado
  • Italy: Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan
  • United Kingdom: Cardiovascular Strategic Research Initiative Institution, University of Cambridge
  • Canada: Department of Human Genetics, McGill University, Montreal
  • Belgium: De Duve Institute, University of Louvain, Brussels

Grants

  • Prof. Yvonne Döring: SBFI: LipidBRIGHT
  • Dr. Aleksandra Tuleja: VSAO Grant
  • Dr. Manovriti Thakur: SwissLife Grant

Highlights 2025

ChemR23 prevents phenotypic switching of vascular smooth muscle cells into macrophage like foam cells in atherosclerosis

Hematopoietic ChemR23 deficiency was shown to reduce atherosclerotic lesions by increasing M2 macrophages, but conflicting results in systemically deficient mice suggest a cell-specific function of ChemR23. Therefore, we aimed to study the role of ChemR23 particularly on vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in atherosclerosis. Using bone marrow transplantation, mice with non-hematopoietic ChemR23 deficiency developed larger atherosclerotic lesions with increased VSMC proliferation and foam cell formation, accompanied by a shift from contractile to synthetic VSMC gene expression. Consistently, human plaque single-cell data showed high ChemR23 expression in contractile VSMCs and reduced expression in synthetic VSMCs, while ChemR23 inhibition in HASMCs promoted a synthetic, proliferative, and cholesterol-retentive phenotype that was counteracted by the ChemR23 agonist chemerin 9. In vivo, both ChemR23 inhibition and agonism demonstrated therapeutic potential in Apoe-/- mice, with chemerin 9 reducing inflammation and α-NETA favoring an atheroprotective M2 macrophage response. These findings suggest a critical role of ChemR23 in regulating VSMC phenotype switching thereby affecting atherosclerosis and suggest ChemR23 as a therapeutic target to either modulate inflammation (C9) or macrophage polarization (α-NETA) in atherosclerotic disease.

Evans et al., Cardiovasc Res. 2025

Distinct inflammatory pathways shape atherosclerosis in different vascular beds

Studies suggest varying atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) prevalence across arterial beds. Factors such as smoking expedite ASCVD progression in the abdominal aorta, while diabetes accelerates plaque development in lower limb arteries, and hypertension plays a significant role in ASCVD development in the coronary and carotid arteries. Moreover, superficial femoral atherosclerosis advances slower compared with atherosclerosis in coronary and carotid arteries. Furthermore, femoral atherosclerosis exhibits higher levels of ossification and calcification, but lower cholesterol concentrations compared with atherosclerotic lesions of other vascular beds. Such disparities exemplify the diverse progression of ASCVD across arterial beds, pointing towards differential mechanistic pathways in each vascular bed. Hence, this review summarizes current literature on immune-inflammatory mechanisms in various arterial beds in ASCVD to advance our understanding of this disease in an aging society with increased need of vascular bed and patient-specific treatment options.

Soehnlein et al., Eur Heart J. 2025

Alcohol embolization versus non-invasive treatment for pain relief in peripheral venous malformations: a comparative study

Pain is a major determinant of quality of life in patients with venous malformations, yet the benefit of alcohol embolization compared with conservative management remains unclear. In this retrospective comparative study of 227 patients, pain outcomes after alcohol embolization were compared with non-invasive treatment over one year. Both strategies reduced maximal pain, with no statistically significant advantage of embolization for this outcome. Alcohol embolization, however, achieved a faster and greater reduction in mean and minimal pain, at the cost of procedure-related complications. These findings support conservative management as an effective first-line strategy for maximal pain control and highlight the importance of patient-reported outcomes and control groups in future therapeutic studies.

Tuleja et al., Cardiovasc Diagn Ther. 2025