ISU College of Pharmacy Associate Professor, Mark Olah, is a member of the College's Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Olah received his B.S. degree in pharmacy from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently obtained the Ph.D. degree from the College of Pharmacy at Ohio State University. Dr. Olah was a postdoctoral research associate and subsequently a research assistant professor in the Division of Cardiology at Duke University. Prior to joining ISU, Dr. Olah served as an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Cell Biophysics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
While a post-doc, Dr. Olah began his research in the field of adenosine receptor pharmacology. Research efforts were directed at the purification, cloning and structure/function studies of the individual adenosine receptor subtypes. While maintaining focus on molecular mechanisms of signaling, Dr. Olah became interested in the role of adenosine receptors in regulating angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. Currently, his laboratory examines both the direct effects of adenosine on endothelial cell and vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation as well as the indirect effects of adenosine on endothelial cell function via the regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression. The laboratory primarily employs cell culture models with a combination of biochemical (protein expression, enzyme activity) and molecular biological (retroviral expression, cloning, site-directed mutagenesis) approaches. This research has clinical application as pro-angiogenic strategies have potential in ischemic vascular disease while anti-angiogenic therapeutics are being recognized as viable approaches in cancer and other pathologies.
Research in the laboratory has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (National Cancer Institute), the American Heart Association and pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Olah has served as a grant reviewer for the American Heart Association, The Wellcome Trust and the Italian Association for Cancer Research.
Dr. Olah enjoys teaching of cardiovascular pharmacology as well as mechanisms of receptor signal transduction and receptor regulation.
