University of Wisconsin–Madison
Cardiovascular Research Center

Trainees

 Predoctoral Trainees (2016-2017)

  • Christopher Brandon
    Research Statement:
    In Type-2 diabetes (T2D) there is a relative insulin deficiency to properly stimulate glucose uptake by obesity-induced insulin resistant cells. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is observed in a large portion of patients living with T2D. The development of the therapeutics to restore or supplement β-cell mass or improve β-cell function could have a major impact to the survivability of these patients. β-cell proliferation therapies are currently limited by our understanding of the natural proliferation mechanisms.
    Utilizing a genetic screen we identified Nfatc2 as a potential mediator of β-cell proliferation. Chris has identified a mutation in the BTBR mouse a T2D model that may be involved in both increased basal nuclear localization of Nfatc2 and increased sensitivity to multiple stimuli. He has also identified the FoxP family of transcription factors as having a potential involvement in Nfatc2-mediated β-cell proliferation. He is actively working on characterizing these phenotypes in order to understand the mechanism of metabolic stress induced β-cell proliferaton.
    Faculty Trainer: Alan Attie, Ph.D., Biochemistry

     

  • Jenny Cheng
    Research Statement:
    Tik-Chee (Jenny) Cheng was born in Hong Kong but raised in Los Angeles, CA. She is a recent graduate of UC San Diego, where she majored in Bioengineering (Biotechnology) and conducted research in the area of cardiac mechanics. Under Dr. Naomi Chesler’s guidance in UW Madison’s Biomedical Engineering department, her project will focus on elucidating the mechanisms linking diabetes with hypertension and other cardiovascular conditions by specifically understanding the effects diabetes and statin therapy have on ECM stiffening and therefore arterial stiffening.
    Faculty Trainer: Naomi Chesler, Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering
  • Kristin Haraldsdottir
    Research Statement:
    Kristin is an exercise physiology doctoral candidate in the laboratory of Dr. Marlowe Eldrige, MD. She received her MS in exercise physiology in 2015, where she studied the differences in calcium handling proteins in the right ventricular tissue of a rat model of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a lung disease of prematurity. She concluded that there is persistent right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH) in animals up to 28 days of age exposed to hyperoxia for 14 days after birth. This hypertrophy is accompanied by altered calcium handling protein expression in the RV compared to unexposed animals. Her current research focuses on elucidating the right ventricular and pulmonary vascular interactions in young adult and child survivors of premature birth, using exercise as a stressor. Kristin’s primary aim is to improve our understanding of the long term effects of prematurity on the cardiopulmonary system.
    Faculty Trainer: Marlowe Eldridge, MD, Pediatrics
  • Heather Hutson
    Research Statement:
    Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is a highly prevalent condition that affects 1 in 4 people over the age of 65 in the US. Despite the high occurrence, valve replacement is the only currently available treatment due largely to a limited understanding of the CAVD progression. Heather’s research focuses on characterizing extracellular matrix alterations that occur in CAVD in order to create an in vitro model of the disease. Her research has been focused on evaluating alterations in collagen, a major component of the aortic heart valve, using advanced imaging techniques. This investigation has led to a better understanding of modifications to the collagen architecture in diseased tissues and has driven her to investigate modifications to other extracellular matrix components along with the influence these modifications have on cell populations located in the aortic valve.
    Faculty Trainer: Kristyn Masters, Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering
  • Catherine Steffel

    Research Statement:

    Catherine’s research uses 3D gray-scale ultrasound imaging to overcome the obstacles of 2D ultrasound and strain elastography to make possible the noninvasive characterization of carotid plaque and its vulnerability. She will further develop an industrial standard 3D ultrasound image acquisition and preprocessing program to extract features of plaques guided by imaging biomarkers, and she will compare these results with those from histological or strain imaging studies. She will also collect acoustic measures of vascular cells and provide a reliable method for ultrasonic reporting of these measures in cell cultures.

    The acoustic measures and 2D and 3D gray scale analyses will be combined to develop a risk model for understanding virtual carotid plaque histology and assessing for vulnerable plaque ultrasound phenotypes. The ultimate goals of this research are to characterize the arterial wall and plaque to better predict which patients may be at risk for ischemic stroke and to optimize medical treatment for individuals at risk for cerebrovascular disease.

    Faculty Trainer: Carol Mitchell, Ph.D., Medical Physics & Cardiovascular Medicine

Postdoctoral Trainees (2016-2017)

  • Claudia P. Alvarez-Baron
    Research Statement:
    Claudia received her MD from the National University of Colombia in 2003 and her Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 2010. During graduate school she worked at Dr. Stuart Dryer’s laboratory studying potassium channel trafficking and the involvement of ion channels in oncogenic transformation. After graduating, she worked in Dr. Nick Spitzer’s laboratory at UC San Diego to study activity-dependent neurotransmitter switching in the adult rat brain. In 2014 she joined Dr. Baron Chanda’s laboratory at UW Madison to study the biophysics of pacemaker channels and develop tools for all-optical electrophysiology. Claudia is interested in the mechanisms of cellular signaling in excitable cells at all levels from the functioning of ion channels to the circuit development.
    Faculty Trainer: Baron Chanda, Ph.D., Neuroscience
  • Matt Glover
    Research Statement:
    Matt obtained a B.A. in Chemistry from Franklin College and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Indiana University. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow (NIH-T32) in the lab of Dr. Lingjun Li (Pharmacy). His research focuses on developing novel mass spectrometry-based techniques for cardiovascular proteomic studies. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop technologies that provide fundamental insight into the molecular mechanisms of restenosis in order to identify novel therapeutic targets.
    Faculty Trainer: Lingjun Li, Ph.D., Pharmacy
  • Thomas Lynch
    Research Statement:
    Thomas Lynch is a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Richard L. Moss in the Department of Cell and Regenerative Biology at UW-Madison. He recently completed his PhD in Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics in August 2016 and joined the Moss lab for his postdoc in September 2016. During his dissertation studies, his research focused on the role of cardiac myosin binding protein-C (cMyBP-C) in regulating cardiac contractile function through its amino terminal region. As the most highly mutated protein in human hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), understanding how this protein functions within the cardiac sarcomere is critical for the development of novel therapies. Accordingly, during his postdoctoral studies in the Moss lab, he will determine how mutations in cMyBP-C cause cardiac contractile dysfunction and the development of HCM through the use of biophysical and mechanical assays. Thomas looks forward to meeting new colleagues at UW-Madison and the opportunity to develop into an independent scientist in the Moss lab.
    Faculty Trainer: Richard Moss, Ph.D., Cell & Regenerative Biology