If you end up being 1 of the approximately 1,000,000 Americans to receive a stent annually, the journey may not be over. When a stent (a mesh tube used to help keep weak/narrowing coronary arteries open, usually made of stainless steel or a cobalt alloy) is placed into a coronary artery, damage to the surrounding cells occurs. The problem, however, is in how these tissues sometimes repair themselves. The endothelial cells lining the vessel play an important part in inhibiting smooth muscle cell growth, and when these cells are damaged due to injury, the underlying smooth muscle cells can abnormally overproduce until the endothelial cell layer is repaired (sometimes leading to neointimal hyperplasia). When this overproduction of vascular smooth muscle cells occurs, the artery wall narrows. If a stent is placed (causing artery wall injury) and either this or scar tissue formation occurs, cells grow over the stent and cause re-narrowing of the artery wall - a phenomenon known as in-stent restenosis. In-stent restenosis means that the stent needs to be replaced, a procedure that causes serious damage to the coronary artery as the stent is now embedded in its wall. Furthermore, 20-40% of these vessels restenose after the replacement, requiring another repeat procedure. The aforementioned biodegradable polymer (from week 3) would be able to diminish the need for stent replacement due to in-stent restenosis as it wouldn't harm the surrounding endothelial cells the way a metal stent would. Going off of that, in order to see how well endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells adhere and react to the biodegradable polymer, we needed to culture cells. I loved this part of the week. For those that don't know, I have a passion for growing plants, so I felt very much "in my element". The steps we took to culture cells:
*roll over the pictures below for captions* This week I also had the honor of being able to attend an event for both BME undergraduate and graduate seniors who displayed their research for judges. This was an extremely informative experience as I got to see years and years of various different kinds of BME research in a few short hours. It showed how BME can be applied to the real world - from eliminating developed countries of autoimmune disorders to helping monitor pill intake of the elderly. Thoughts after this week:
Until next week! Maren Sources: http://circinterventions.ahajournals.org/content/4/1/104 http://www.nature.com/articles/srep26291#f7 http://www.healthcentral.com/heart-disease/ask-doctor-44707-70.html
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AuthorHello! I'm Maren, a high school senior and aspiring BME student. My goal is to share my experiences as I dive into the field of Biomedical Engineering. If you have any questions or remarks, please don't hesitate to leave a comment! Archives
April 2017
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