Endothelial Cells

Cardiovascular disease is a broad term that encompasses a variety of disorders in which the heart and its associated blood vessels lose the capacity to deliver blood efficiently and effectively throughout the body. Cardiac endothelial cells play a vital role in maintaining the homeostatic balance of cardiac physiology. Research into c-Myc, a master regulator involved in the transcription of a large set of genes that regulate inflammation, has been the focus of new therapeutics aimed at treating or lessening the deleterious effects of cardiovascular disease. This project serves to explore how endothelial loss of c-Myc impacts cardiac function under normal and stress conditions, using ultrasound echocardiography image analysis to determine the key differences between all models.