Seminars

ABSTRACT:

Dysregulated signaling is a hallmark of disorders such as cancers, obesity, and complications in labor. Our research aims to advance new knowledge that can improve understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of these and other disorders/complications using a systems biology approach that leverages bioengineering tools and computational models. This presentation highlights our recent findings in obesity, biomarker discovery, non-canonical signaling, and labor and delivery.

We investigate how obesity affects the adipose tissue and vascular microenvironment, revealing sex- specific differences in vascular biomarkers and adipocyte morphology. Our latest work on blood-cell based VEGFR measurement provides a noninvasive method to study sex- and age-related influences on vascular cell membrane localization, offering a framework to explore patient variability. Furthermore, we investigate non-canonical PDGF-to-VEGFR signaling, yielding new insights into vascular regulation.

Labor and delivery interventions also present challenges, particularly with oxytocin use. We present oxytocin receptor measurements coupled with a data-driven computational model that reveals variations in oxytocin receptor complex formation across cell types, influenced by genetic factors. This work suggests the need for personalized dosage adjustments to enhance patient outcomes.

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