Biomedical engineer secures American Heart Association support for cardiovascular research

Whether you're aware of it or not, each cell in your body recycles its unnecessary or dysfunctional components. That process, known as autophagy, degrades damaged cellular proteins and organelles—and reutilizes the degradation products for building new cell components.

Supported by an American Heart Association grant, a team of engineering and medical researchers at Ohio State are investigating this natural recycling process inside vascular endothelial cells—the type that cover the inner surface of our blood vessels. Malfunction of the cell’s recycling process can contribute to cell death, especially following a stressful situation, such as a heart attack. Damaged or dysfunctional endothelial cells have been linked to cardiovascular diseases including atherosclerosis.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Internal Medicine Rita Alevriadou and her collaborator, Professor of Internal Medicine Jay Zweier, are leading the study, which will utilize both cultured cells and a mouse heart model. They believe that findings have the potential to reveal new molecular targets for the devel­opment of drugs that will protect the endothelium and lead to better clinical outcomes for patients following a heart attack. 

“This is an example of how biomedical engineering research can help prevent and/or treat cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Alevriadou.