TITLE:

From the Right Heart to the Pulmonary Arteries: A Multi-Scale Approach to Understanding Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.

DATE:

Friday, March 29th, 2019

TIME:

3:30 PM

LOCATION:

GMCS 214

SPEAKER:

Dr. Daniela Valdez-Jasso, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, UCSD.

ABSTRACT:

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rapidly progressive vasculopathy that
commonly results in intractable right-heart failure and premature death.
Transplantation of the lung remains the only cure, suggesting our limited
understanding of the pathophysiology. Here I present recent results from my
research laboratory using a rat animal model of PAH. A multiscale approach is
used to elucidate the organ- (hemodynamic) and tissue- (structural and mechanical)
response of the pressure-overloaded right ventricle, the dynamic vascular
remodeling process in PAH and their ventriculo-vascular interaction. Experimental
findings are incorporated into mechanistic mathematical models for testable
quantitative formulations of organ and tissue function. Our goal is to use the
in-vivo hemodynamic measurements and the vascular properties obtained during
ex-vivo mechanical testing to initiate a one-dimensional fluid model and simulate
the pulmonary system in health and during the progression of PAH.

BIOGRAPHY: Dr. Valdez-Jasso received her Undergraduate and Masters degrees
in Applied Mathematics, and her doctoral degree in Biomathematics, all from
the Department of Mathematics at North Carolina State University. Her
graduate thesis, which was recognized for its excellence with a Lucas
Research Award, focused on modeling approaches to understanding the dynamic
pressure-area relationship of systemic arteries. During her postdoctoral
training at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where she was
an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellow, a member of the Vascular
Medicine Institute, and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine,
she investigated the tissue structure and biomechanics of the normal and
pressure-overloaded right ventricle. As an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering
at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Dr. Valdez-Jasso established
her research laboratory in soft-tissue biomechanics and in multi-scale
mathematical modeling of tissue function, particularly as they pertain to
understanding the vascular and right-ventricular adaptations to pulmonary
hypertension. An American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant currently
supports her work. She has been an active Faculty mentor of the Minority
Engineering Recruitment and Retention Program in the College of Engineering
at UIC and is the vice-chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineering Bioengineering Division. As a
faculty member of UCSD, she will be working closely with the Medical Center
to characterize the organ- and tissue-level mechanisms by which the active
remodeling process in pulmonary hypertension occurs in patients with this disease.

HOST:

Youngjoon Hong, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

DOWNLOAD: