Summer 2024 E-SURP
Bio: Ekin Atila is a second-year biomedical engineering student at the University of California Irvine. She is currently working as an undergraduate student in Dr.Chesler’s Cardiopulmonary Health Lab, striving to improve cardiovascular health with an emphasis on health equity. So far, she has learned how to analyze echocardiograms and heart rate variability data, while also presenting research on health disparities among marginalized groups. She aspires to pursue medicine in the future and continue to gain experience in research and clinical settings in order to contribute to a greater impact in the medical field. Outside of academics, she loves to go on scenic runs, volunteer in Turkish-American events, play the piano, and produce music!
Project Description: The study aims to investigate the role of sex and sex hormones in pulmonary hypertension due to left heart failure. We will be utilizing myocardial infarction (MI) and controlled mice models to address the gap in knowledge regarding sex and its role in heart failure recovery. I will analyze cardiac function changes in MI mice using VEVO Lab ultrasound analysis. The mice in this study will be used to study disease progression with multiple time points, and female and male mice will be used to assess sex and sex hormone differences in disease progression and remodeling.
Bio: Hi, my name is Ethan Vu. I am a 3rd year mechanical engineering major with a biomedical engineering minor. I am interested in studying biophotonics and tissue engineering. Specifically, I am intrigued by the way mechanotransduction affects cellular signaling, and it is a future goal of mine to work for Edwards Lifesciences for biomedical engineering specializing in asthma attack prevention. Some of my hobbies include playing soccer, going to the beach, and seeing concerts.
Project Description: The project involves using an advanced optical system that uses laser-generated cavitation bubbles to study the cellular mechanosensitivity in three dimensional environments. The technique provides a noninvasive, localized, and adjustable mechanical stimuli to cells, which enables the examination of intracellular calcium signaling. This allows for further research into disease pathophysiology and the screening of cell-biomaterial interactions in the complex 3D space.
Bio: I am currently a third-biomedical engineering major with a minor in mathematics. My goal is to be able to create affordable medical technology so that low income communities like mine can benefit from the innovations of biomedical engineering. I would like to achieve this goal by pursuing a PhD in biomedical engineering. I have interests in cardiovascular engineering as well as bioinformatics. Outside of class, I participate in the red cross club and reading literature.
Project Description: In women, the phase of the menstrual cycle affects vascular function, specifically influencing the stiffness of large elastic arteries and endothelial function. With this in mind, the proper design of rodent studies involving females should recognize the hormonal fluctuations throughout the estrous cycle and make intentional decisions about whether to account for these variations. My objective is to identify methods (on mice) to detect hormones primarily estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone so that we can categorize them by what phase of the estrous cycle the mice are on. This is done by collecting serum (blood) from mice (n=12). My project will be to design a procedure to prepare the serum to be able to be used by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LCMS). From there I will work on a code to analyze the results from the LCMS so that we can quantify the hormone levels in these mice and compare the results with other experiments. We will also check our findings using visual observations of the mice, uterus weights, and vaginal cytology to confirm the estrus phase. This will allow us to account for the estrous cycle in future experiments.
Bio: Hello. My name is Sacred Moseley. I am a 3rd Year Biological Sciences Student conducting research in Chesler Lab. I aspire to be a Neurosurgeon years from now. I am interested in cooking, visiting museums, and drawing.
Project Description: Previously, the Baram group has found that early-life adversity (ELA) alters reward circuitry and contributes to disrupted reward behaviors in mice that underlie major emotional disorders in mice. We sought to investigate whether ELA has cardiovascular consequences in mice. We previously concluded that ELA on its own does yield cardiovascular consequences and that a “second hit” is required to invoke a measure consequence. In future work, we will continue to use the ELA mice model and experiment with possible “second hits” to continue to investigate the connection between ELA and the development of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.