This award will support a collaborative effort between teams of U.S. and Japanese researchers aimed at furthering our understanding of the interaction of blood flow with both normal blood vessel walls and with vessels engineered from substitute materials. The application of this information includes fluid dynamics as a factor in vascular disease, but more importantly the development of biological tissue substitutes for the restoration of cardiovascular function, i.e. tissue engineering. The engineering development of small-bore grafts is urgently needed, and to successfully do this requires an understanding of the fluid dynamic environment of such grafts and the interaction of flow with the vessel wall at a cellular level. In this effort, the U.S. and Japanese investigators will conduct both complementary and joint studies over a two-year period. Specific experiments will be directed at defining the flow environment and determining associated cellular responses, including both the adhesion of blood cells and alterations in endothelial cells, the cells which line the inner arterial walls and interface directly with flowing blood. The principal investigators are Dr. Robert M. Nerem, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Dr. Norio Ohshima, University of Tsukuba, Japan. Other co-investigators are from the Biomechanics Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology and from three Japanese institutions: the University of Hokkaido, the Kawasaki Medical School, and the University of Tsukuba.
