I'm a 4th-year graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering here at UVa. I grew up northwest of Chicago in McHenry, IL, and I try to sound tough by saying I miss the cold during the winter. After graduating from Duke University in 2004, I worked for a year with Dr. Hunt Willard at Duke's Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy before coming to UVa. When I'm not in the lab you'll probably find me running, playing soccer, or watching Duke basketball.
PhD Candidate, Biomedical Engineering, present
Bachelor of Science, Biomedical Engineering, 2004
Recent work from our lab has shown that Neural-Glial Antigen 2 (NG2) is expressed by mural cells on capillaries and arterioles in quiescent tissue, but NG2 is not present on quiescent venlues. However, during a remodeling stimulus, drastic transient upregulations of NG2 expression occur in venlues and the capillaries sprouting from them; these results indicate NG2 is a perivascular marker of a sprouting vessel phenotype.
My interest lies in two areas of further understanding this phenomenon:
1) Visually and quantitatively characterizing NG2 expression for a wide array of stimuli, functional states and pathologies.
2) Use the knowledge gained in 1 as a stepping stone for examining the mechanisms behind NG2 expression and function.
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