NIH awards $1.4M for arterial plaque research

A Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) research team has received a four-year, $1.4 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue a study of arterial plaque, which is seeking to predict the likelihood of plaque rupture.

Led by Dalin Tang, PhD, professor of mathematical sciences and biomedical engineering at WPI in Worcester, Mass., the team is collaborating with researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Washington in Seattle, combining computer modeling with diagnostic technologies to chart the development of atherosclerotic plaque in the coronary arteries.

Using computational models, MRI scans of volunteers and histological studies of diseased arteries, the researchers have spent several years investigating mechanisms governing plaque progression and factors and indices that could be used to predict potential plaque rupture. Tang published the first paper about this plaque model in 2004.

According to the WPI, the new NIH award will allow the team to extend this research. Combining such techniques as image-based computational modeling, intravascular ultrasound, angiography, MRI and mechanical testing to analyze atherosclerotic coronary plaques, the team aims to focus on what factors—including the forces from blood flow, pressure and heart motions—best assess quantitatively which of those plaques are most likely to rupture.

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