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Young Clinician Investigator Aaron Dumont, MD University of Virginia Inflammatory Cytokines and Smooth Muscle Cell Phenotypic Modulation in Cerebrovascular Disease Cerebral aneurysms are common in the general population and aneurysm rupture remains a catastrophic event for which outcomes remain poor. Despite this, our understanding of the basic biology of aneurysms is limited. Understanding basic aneurysm biology will be critical to development of future treatments for patients harboring cerebral aneurysms. There is mounting evidence to suggest that inflammatory cytokines may specifically be important in the formation and progression of cerebral aneurysms. The present proposal attempts to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which cytokines may directly evoke changes in cerebral vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) producing an inflammatory phenotype in vitro, and also attempts to determine a potential direct role for inflammatory cytokines and SMC phenotype modulation in the development and progression of cerebral aneurysms in vivo.