If it works as hoped, it could be the next blockbuster drug: one that shrinks artery-clogging atherosclerotic plaque, the leading cause of the heart attacks that kill some half a million people annually in the United States.
Daniel Rader, a cardiologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, is studying several compounds that researchers say might be successful. Rader is a "key scientist" in this field, and the "prototype of a translational researcher - he goes between patients and the lab," says Glenn Gaulton, executive vice dean and chief scientific officer at Penn. While there are medicines to prevent buildup of cholesterol, a key component of plaque, there aren't any to clear it from the bloodstream, he says.
Rader argues that plaque-fighting drugs, sometimes called "Drano for the arteries," ...
