Karl-Erik Andersson, M.D., Ph.D.   Professor, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine   Email: keanders@wfubmc.edu   Education: University of Lund, Sweden, MD, 1968 University of Lund, Sweden, Pharmacology, Ph.D., 1973 University of Odense, Denmark, Swedish specialist in Internal Medicine, 1975

Research Interests: Research interests include urogenital and cardiovascular pharmacology and physiology, clinical trials and regenerative pharmacology. Current Research: Disturbances in urogenital tract function are common, and often based on malfunction of nerves and smooth muscle. Overactive bladder (OAB) syndrome is one of the most common disorders, and symptoms increase with age. OAB is also common in diabetes and neurological disease. Current drugs for treatment of OAB are limited by insufficient efficacy and side-effects, and new approaches are needed. This implies the search for new targets to pharmacologically control bladder function. Erectile dysfunction (ED) is age-related and is found in 30% of men over 60 years. Although sildenafil is efficacious in the treatment for ED, limitations are noted in patient-categories such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, where ED also is more prevalent. At the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the peripheral mechanisms involved in bladder over activity and ED and afferent neuronal functions involved in the regulation of bladder and erectile functions are studied to improve drug therapies and/or to identify new targets for pharmacological treatment of urinary incontinence. A wide variety of molecular biological techniques, functional in vitro methods, and in vivo models are used. These methods will also be applied to characterize pharmacological and physiological properties of engineered tissues in vitro and in vivo, with the purpose of identifying targets to pharmacologically modify their function. Publications: Andersson KE, Arner A. Urinary bladder contraction and relaxation: physiology and pathophysiology. Physiol Rev. 2004 Jul;84(3):935-86. Andersson KE, Wein AJ. Pharmacology of the lower urinary tract: basis for current and future treatments of urinary incontinence. Pharmacol Rev. 2004 Dec;56(4):581-631. Andersson KE, Olshansky B. Treating patients with overactive bladder syndrome with antimuscarinics: heart rate considerations. BJU Int. 2007 Nov;100(5):1007-14. Hipp JA, Hipp JD, Yoo JJ, Atala A, Andersson KE. Microarray analysis of bladder smooth muscle from patients with myelomeningocele. BJU Int. 2008 Sep;102(6):741-6. Streng T, Axelsson HE, Hedlund P, Andersson DA, Jordt SE, Bevan S, Andersson KE, Högestätt ED, Zygmunt PM. Distribution and function of the hydrogen sulfide-sensitive TRPA1 ion channel in rat urinary bladder. Eur Urol. 2008 Feb;53(2):391-9 Gratzke C, Jarajapu YP, Christ GJ, Kaplan JR, Williams JK, Andersson KE, Badlani G. Effects of long-term dietary soy treatment on female urethral morphology and function in ovariectomized nonhuman primates. J Urol. 2008 Nov;180(5):2247-53. Publications: For a listing of additional publications, refer to PubMed, a service provided by the National Library of Medicine