David Alan Vorp
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Biomedical Engineering
Blood vessels fail mechanically. An aneurysm bursts when the pressure pushing outward on the wall exceeds what the wall can withstand, and a bypass graft fails when it clots or scars shut.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
thoracic aortic aneurysm
aortic dissection
wall stress
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- 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.
- Evaluate diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, which tracks how water moves through tissue, as a non-invasive way to measure local tissue mass density in aneurysm walls.
- Determine whether low-density regions in aneurysm tissue coincide with mechanically weak regions and with where failure initiates, using high-speed imaging of specimens loaded until they tear.
- Evaluate silk scaffolds loaded with mesenchymal stem cell extracellular vesicles against industry-standard in vitro quality attributes for use as small-diameter tissue-engineered vascular grafts.
- Implant human-sized silk-plus-vesicle grafts as carotid artery interposition grafts in sheep and measure patency at 8 weeks and 6 months, while assessing manufacturability and preparing an FDA pre-submission package.
- Demonstrate that azide-tagged extracellular vesicles, attached by click chemistry, bind silk fibroin more stably than unmodified vesicles and reproduce mesenchymal stem cell effects on cells in culture.
- Test whether click-immobilized extracellular vesicles promote healing in a mouse chronic wound model and improve outcomes in a rat tissue-engineered vascular graft model.
More about the research
Both problems sit at the meeting point of mechanics, imaging and biology. These projects work on two fronts: predicting which aortic aneurysms are dangerously weak, and building replacement blood vessels that the body will accept and remodel into living tissue. A shared theme is using measurable physical and biological properties, such as tissue density or vesicles secreted by stem cells, to predict and direct tissue behavior.
Why it matters
Thoracic aortic aneurysms are currently judged by diameter alone, so some patients get unnecessary surgery while others rupture unexpectedly; imaging-based maps of where an aneurysm wall is weakest, compared against stress maps, could improve who is sent to the operating room and pinpoint likely failure sites. For people with coronary and peripheral vascular disease, an off-the-shelf graft could spare them the harvesting of a vein from their own chest or leg. The clickable-vesicle technology could also support treatment of chronic wounds and improve how long bypass grafts stay open.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Clickable Extracellular Vesicles to Silk-Based Biomaterials for Regenerative Medicine
NIH · Sep 2023 – Jul 2028
Advancing Aortic Aneurysm Strength Predictions: A Novel Density-Driven Strength Assessment Tool
NIH · Aug 2025 – May 2027
Preclinical Optimization and Design for Manufacturability of Immunoregulatory TEVGs
NIH · Mar 2025 – Feb 2027
Closest labs
Dogukan Mizrak
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
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.
Luka Pocivavsek
University of Chicago, IL·Biomedical Engineering
Develop a geometric classification of aortic shapes by using computer-vision tools to reduce CTA scans of normal and dissected aortas to distributions of shape index and curvedness, two measures of surface form.
Brandon Tefft
Medical College of Wisconsin, WI·Biomedical Engineering
Identify signaling pathways that let a subset of endothelial cells stay attached under blood-like shear stress, using RNA sequencing to compare gene activity in all cells versus cells that remain attached.
The school
University of Pittsburgh: 83 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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