Researchers across FIU are helping turn the tide on cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, through early detection, advanced surgery and collaborative innovation.
Working alongside seasoned investigators are many biomedical engineering graduate students. They are driven by a desire to extend care to a wider base of patients and improve health outcomes for everyone. Today, during American Heart Month, meet a few who have made improving cardiac treatment a professional goal.
Fighting artery-clogging plaque
Atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in the arteries, is a major culprit of cardiovascular disease. Problems happen when plaque becomes unstable and break off the wall of the arteries. Blood clots form at the rupture site. Those clots can block blood flow. If it happens in the heart, it causes a heart attack.
Understanding the mechanisms behind this type of vascular calcification is a major focus of Associate Professor Joshua Hutcheson’s Cardiovascular Matrix Remodeling Lab.
Sophie Ashbrook studies how two key molecules – a protein that helps organize cell membranes and an epidermal growth factor receptor that controls cell communication - together lead to the buildup of plaque. She’s testing existing drugs that are FDA-approved for other diseases, such as cancer, to see if they might be repurposed to reduce the levels of the molecules involved in calcification. The approach has shown shows promise.
Ana Valentín Cabrera also works in Hutcheson’s lab and is focused on developing new therapies to prevent or reverse calcification. Working with the National Institutes of Health Center for Translational Sciences, she is testing small-molecule drugs that activate the relaxin receptor, a promising therapeutic target for vascular calcification.
Cabrera and the team grow cells in the lab to observe the progress of calcification and then test potential treatments in real time, some which have shown an ability to reduce calcium buildup.
Peripheral Arterial Disease
Plaque buildup is one of the major causes of Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD). The condition often goes undiagnosed until it is advanced, which can lead to severe, life-altering complications. Many of the diagnostic methods currently used to catch PAD in its initial stages are expensive, invasive or not widely accessible. These barriers limit early detection and timely care.
Aasma Dahal who also works in Hutcheson’s lab is working to create a low-cost, non-invasive imaging technique that uses near-infrared light to monitor changes in peripheral blood vessels. She hopes that her proposed, relatively easier method for PAD monitoring can transform patient care by making it affordable and more readily available to reduce complications and lower long-term health care costs.
Cardiac patches for heart repair
Heart attacks occur when a blocked blood vessel prevents oxygen and nutrients from reaching the heart, causing tissue damage and cell death. Currently, the only approved treatment for the damage caused by a heart attack is an organ transplant, a very limited option and one that comes with high risks of rejection.
Alexi Switz works in Anamika Prasad’s Materials Research and the Inclusive Complex Tissue Regeneration Laboratory. She focuses on developing a “band-aid” to repair damaged heart tissue and restore cardiac function. Such a cardiac patch would promote tissue regeneration by encouraging cell growth and deliver therapeutic agents directly to the injured area. Inspired by the research of Associate Professor Anamika Prasad, in whose lab she works, Switz draws upon the similarity between the geometry of plant cell walls – cells arranged in a coil, or spiral, shape - and fibers found in the heart to guide her design of the patch.