Dogukan Mizrak
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
A thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) is a dangerous bulge in the main artery leaving the heart. It can tear (dissection) or rupture, and these events are major causes of illness and death in the United States.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
thoracic aortic aneurysm
aortic dissection
sex differences
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2029
What they work on
- Define the molecular triggers and downstream effects of CART signaling in human aortic smooth muscle cells in vitro, testing whether it drives wall remodeling and medial calcification, mineral buildup that stiffens the artery.
- Determine the role of sexually dimorphic signaling in thoracic aortic aneurysm in vivo, using bioengineered human vascular grafts made with human-derived smooth muscle cells.
- Produce high-resolution spatial maps of male and female aneurysm tissue using single-molecule spatial transcriptomics on surgically removed samples, as a reference for the sex-specific cell types identified, including CARTPT-expressing cells.
More about the research
Aneurysms grow differently in men and women and have different outcomes, but no one knows why. Most patients have no family history of the disease, and the only treatment is surgery, because the disease process in humans is poorly understood.
Why it matters
No drugs currently treat thoracic aortic aneurysm, and patients rely on surgery to prevent life-threatening dissection and rupture. Explaining why the disease differs between men and women, especially the role of CART signaling and medial calcification, could point to sex-specific treatment targets and better prevention and management.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
David Alan Vorp
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether bulk tissue mass density predicts local tensile strength in human thoracic aortic aneurysm tissue, extending a density-strength relationship the team validated in porcine aorta.
Yanming Li
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Genetics
Identify the aortic cell types in which TAAD-associated SNPs act, by integrating GWAS results with single-cell ATAC-seq maps of accessible chromatin from human aortic tissue.
Santhi Ganesh
University of Michigan, MI·Genetics
Define the range of genetic variants underlying arterial fibrodysplasia using high-throughput targeted gene sequencing of patients with fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) from clinical and biorepository collections.
The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.