Therapeutical Clinic of Medical School, NKUA
The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) was officially founded in 1837. It is the leading and most well-known academic institution in Greece, offering valuable educational services. NKUA, with the dynamics of its members (approximately 80,000 pregraduate and postgraduate students, over 2,000 members of academic staff and approximately 1,300 administrative and secretarial staff), is at the leading edge of education and research.
The Therapeutical Clinic (TC) is located at the "Alexandra" Hospital, Athens, and belongs to the Medical School of NKUA. TC is one of the oldest Clinics of the Medical School and the only one in Greece that has as its main academic object the teaching, research and applied practice of Clinical Therapy in a wide range of Pathological diseases. It has 110 hospital beds, ambulatory and emergency care facilities, as well as specialized Units with laboratories of various pathological specialties. One of them is the Unit of Angiology and Pathophysiology of the Endothelium and the Hypertension Unit of the Therapeutical Clinic, which have been collaborating during the recent decades, with the aim of studying vascular inflammation in atherosclerosis and hypertension.
Previous experience
The Endothelial Angiology and Pathophysiology Unit of the Therapeutical Clinic has been operating since 1995 with a focus on clinical, teaching and research activities. More specifically, it provides clinical and diagnostic examinations of vascular diseases to patients at Alexandra Hospital and other hospitals in Athens.
In addition, the Therapeutical Clinic contributes significantly to the completion of many doctoral dissertations. It also participates in the education and training of doctors of various specialties.
The research range of the Clinic is focused on:
i) the study of vascular inflammation in atherosclerosis and hypertension
ii) the identification of new cardiovascular risk biomarkers
iii) the study of the effect of epigenomic and epigraphic mechanisms on atherosclerosis
iv) the study of the effect of interventions with pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical agents, in newer indicators of vascular inflammation and atherosclerosis.
The Clinic’s Hypertension Facility has been operating since 1991, with the main clinical goal of diagnosing and treating hypertension. The Hypertension Facility examines more than 1100 patients annually. The educational activities of the Facility include completion doctoral dissertations and hypertension training for postdoctoral students and practitioners.
The research range of the Therapeutical Clinic include the study of blood pressure recording, the hypertension phenotypes, the variability of blood pressure, dysautonomic parameters and the effect of all the above on the lesions of target organs of hypertension.
In total, the research activity of the Therapeutical Clinic has resulted in more than 200 international publications in high-level scientific journals, such as Nature Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Blood, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Hypertension, Stroke, etc.