Collin and Mrudang selected as finalists at SB3C 2023 Student Compeitions

Collin Haese, 2nd year MS student in EM, will present his work titled “The Role of Annuloplasty Ring Shape and Size on Tricuspid Valve Repair” as a finalist in the MS Student Poster Competition.

Mrudang Mathur, 5th year PhD candidate in ME, will present his work titled “Suppressing Leaflet Thickening and Stiffening May Restore Tricuspid Valve Function” as a finalist in the PhD Student Paper Competition.

Good luck to them both!

NIH funds research on Stimuli, Effects, and Treatment of Tricuspid Valve Maladaptation

The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health has funded our $3.5 million R01 proposal on “Tricuspid Valve Maladaptation: Its Stimuli, its Effect on Valve Function, and its Response to Therapy”.

Leakage of the tricuspid valve, which is located between the right atrium and right ventricle, is extremely common and, if not treated, can significantly impact the health of patients. The current gold-standard for treatment is a surgical approach known as tricuspid annuloplasty, which unfortunately does not have high long-term success rates and fails in approximately one-third of patients. This proposal is relevant to public health as we aim to better understand a new tricuspid valve disease mechanism, tricuspid valve maladaptation, that could be used as future therapeutic target toward improving the currently poor outcomes for patients with tricuspid valve regurgitation.

Further details about the grant can be found here.

ONR funds research on Blood Clot Dislodgement

The Office of Naval Research has funded our proposal on “Casualty Safe Ride Standards: A Study of Ride-induced Blood Clot Dislodgement“

The project, in collaboration with Dr. Tal Cohen (Nonlinear Solid Mechanics Lab, MIT), will focus on understanding the contributory role of transport-induced forces to blood clot dislodgement should critically determine safe ride standards. Thrombus – or blood clot – dislodgement is a significant source of morbidity and mortality in young adults following injury or surgery. That is, after blood vessels are severed during combat or surgery, exposure of blood to vascular wall proteins initiates the coagulation cascade and leads to the formation of clots. Those clots may subsequently dislodge from their site of formation and occlude vital downstream blood vessels such as those of the lung, the heart, or the brain. The objective of this work is to determine safety measures for the transport of casualties. Specifically, this work will determine the primary mechanism of blood clot dislodgement during casualty transport and the conditions at which this dislodgement occurs.

NIH funds research on Human-Specific Computational Models of the Tricuspid Valve

The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health has funded our proposal on “Human-Specific Prediction, Training, and Visualization Tools for the Tricuspid Valve from Existing Data”.

Approximately 1.6 million Americans suffer from severe leakage on the tricuspid valve. Standard treatments fail to substantially address this leakage in almost a third of all patients. We posit that these poor outcomes are due to our very limited basic understanding of the normal and diseased valve. Computer models have been valuable in many other areas of surgery and could be critical tools toward overcoming our current knowledge gaps about the tricuspid valve. Through this project, we aim to establish human-specific computational models of the tricuspid valve for predictive simulation, surgical training, and anatomic vizualization. Upon conclusion of this project, we will make these models openly available.

Further details about the grant can be found here.

NSF funds research on Micro-Mechanics of Fiber Networks

The National Science Foundation has funded our proposal on ‘Inferring The In Situ Micro-Mechanics of Embedded Fiber Networks by Leveraging Limited Imaging Data’.

The project, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Emma Lejeune (Lejeune Lab, Boston University), will focus on gaining a fundamental understanding of embedded fiber networks and creating the tools necessary to characterize their behavior from limited available measurements. Embedded fiber networks are ubiquitous in nature, from the extracellular matrix surrounding biological cells, to branching blood vessels embedded in organs, to moth’s cocoons. Understanding these systems is important because these systems are the fundamental mechanical building blocks of many types of natural and engineered biological tissue, and bio-inspired advanced materials.

Further details about the grant can be found here.

Will receives Acta Student Award

Will Meador, 6th year Ph.D. candidate, received the Acta Student Award for his primary contribution to the manuscript, “A detailed mechanical and microstructural analysis of ovine tricuspid valve leaflets”.

Will’s manuscript was deemed to “demonstrate exceptional value to the biomaterials community” and was one of sixteen manuscripts recognized globally by the selection committee.

Further information on the Acta Student Awards can be found here.

Congratulations Will!