Blood vessels are the highways of the human body, and blood cells are like cars streaming to different destinations. When vessels are blocked, the circulatory system builds alternate routes so blood-cell traffic can flow smoothly until the block is repaired. These new blood vessels are formed through a process called angiogenesis.

Mohamed Zayed, a medical student researcher in the lab of biochemist Leslie Parise, has discovered a new function for a protein involved in angiogenesis. “I had a personal interest in vascular biology,” Zayed says. “During my first semester of undergrad my father had a heart attack.” Scientists in the Parise lab were already investigating the protein, called CIB1, as a potential factor in heart disease.

The researchers had generated a mouse that lacked CIB1. Zayed thought CIB1 might have functions beyond heart disease, and so he began to study the process of angio- genesis in the mutant mice. With help from collaborators Mary Elizabeth Hartnett and Jim Faber, Zayed determined that blood vessels could not form correctly without CIB1.

Parise explains that CIB1 might be useful for treating diseases in which discouraging or encouraging blood vessel growth would be beneficial to patients. For example, tumors generate blood vessels to sustain themselves; removing CIB1 might starve the tumors. Stopping blood vessel formation could also help individuals with diabetic retinopathy, an eye condition that results from malformation of blood vessels and eventually leads to blindness. On the other hand, promoting blood vessel formation could aid people at high risk for heart attacks by providing alternate paths for blood, in case an artery to the heart becomes blocked.

Now scientists in Parise’s lab are searching for other proteins that interact with CIB1. The researchers hope that this study will lead to a treatment that can regulate angiogenesis, giving doctors an additional tool to sidestep traffic jams and maintain blood flow in their patients.