Mechanical and Structural Adaptations of Blood Vessels in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

A new Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award to Prof. Valdez-Jasso will focus on improving our understanding of the adverse changes that occur in the arteries of the lung during pulmonary arterial hypertension, a serious disease with high mortality rates and no cure other than a lung transplantation. The new research will build on the lab’s discovery that accumulation of fibrous tissue in the pulmonary arteries during disease progression is accompanied by an increase in their mechanical stiffness that impairs lung blood flow. Dr. Valdez-Jasso’s team will investigate the biological mechanisms by which the diseased arteries respond to increased blood pressure and how the structural changes in the vessel wall affect their mechanical properties using novel in-vivo physiological measurements, ex-vivo biomechanics, in-vitro cell biology and mathematical modeling.

The research will be complemented by an outreach program that teaches students how skills in biology, mathematics and engineering can be combined to find solutions to chronic health problems. Undergraduate students will gain hands-on access to the laboratory facilities used in this research.