Bruno Rego, a biomedical engineering graduate student, and Daniel Howsmon, a postdoctoral fellow, both researchers in the Willerson Center for Cardiovascular Modeling and Simulation, have received fellowships from the American Heart Association.
Rego will receive an annual stipend of approximately $24,000 over two years along with a $2,000 support package to help defray his training-related expenses, such as travel to scientific meetings, publications, supplies, and equipment.
His proposal had the highest score of the near-500 nationwide applicants.
The fellowship will support Rego's research to address the clinical need to improve mitral valve repair outcomes and minimize the high proportion of patients that develop ischemic mitral regurgitation following mitral valve repair. Rego will work toward developing a well-integrated computational and experimental approach that seeks to establish a patient-specific computational modeling framework incorporating unique remodeling patterns to advance surgical planning techniques.
Howsmon will receive an annual stipend of approximately $51,000 over two years along with a $6,000 support package.
This fellowship will support Howsmon’s research of developing heart valve models in order to improve approaches to heart valve repair. Heart valve cells play an important role in heart valve remodeling and understanding how these cells are regulated under stress is significantly important for maintaining healthy heart valves. The models that Howsmon develops have the potential to provide fundamental insights into valve remodeling and could also provide a way to predict the outcome of therapeutic strategies.
The Willerson Center for Cardiovascular Modeling and Simulation in the Institute for Computational and Engineering Sciences develops computational biomechanical models for understanding heart valve and heart disease progression for developing clinical interventions, including prosthetics devices. The center is directed by Michael Sacks, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and holder of the W. A. "Tex" Moncrief, Jr. Endowment in Simulation-Based Engineering and Sciences - Endowed Chair No. 1
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