Rui Liang
Ohio State University, OH·Biomedical Engineering
Surgical mesh is often implanted in women to treat stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse, the two most common pelvic floor disorders. Women with diabetes face about five times the risk of mesh complications.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
urogynecologic mesh
surgical mesh
pelvic organ prolapse
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2027
What they work on
- Test whether hyperglycemic memory in bone marrow cells alters macrophage behavior, comparing macrophages from high-glucose-exposed versus normal bone marrow in vitro.
- Separate the effects of hyperglycemic memory in bone marrow from that in vaginal tissue, using bone marrow transplantation in diabetic rats given mesh by sacrocolpopexy and followed for 90 days.
- Compare early and strict, immediately pre-surgery, and poor glucose control in diabetic rats, measuring host immune response and mesh outcomes at 7, 42 and 90 days after surgery.
- Analyze the immune response in mesh-tissue samples from women with mesh complications to link hyperglycemic memory to the higher complication risk in diabetes.
More about the research
These include mesh wearing through into the vagina and chronic pelvic pain. This higher risk persists even when blood sugar is controlled around the time of surgery. One possible explanation is 'hyperglycemic memory' (HgM). HgM is the observation that long periods of high blood sugar can have lasting harmful effects even after glucose returns to normal. No study has yet asked how HgM affects women who receive urogynecologic mesh.
Why it matters
Diabetes affects about one in ten adult women in the US. Women with diabetes who receive polypropylene slings or meshes have far more complications, which harm quality of life and add health costs. Learning whether hyperglycemic memory drives these complications could guide better glucose management before surgery. It could also inform other preventive strategies for women with diabetes undergoing prosthesis-aided pelvic floor surgery.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Metin Uz
Cleveland State University, OH·Biomedical Engineering
Design, fabricate and characterize a biodegradable piezoelectric platform with a flexible cuff electrode, measuring its electrical output and lab degradation profile to control stimulation conditions on the pudendal nerve.
Tatiana Sanses
Howard University, DC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Identify the health determinants and barriers to urinary incontinence care among Non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic women in Washington DC by engaging multiple stakeholders, and adapt the ABC for Bladder Health behavioral therapy to fit their needs.
Timothy Bigelow
Iowa State University, IA·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether adding lower-amplitude pulses to histotripsy, an ultrasound technique that creates bubble clouds to mechanically destroy cells, reduces cavitation memory and shortens treatment of infected hernia mesh, and measure how exposures affect mesh properties.
The school
Ohio State University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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