Questions We Are Asking

Vascular Adventitia and Vascular Diseases
Vascular adventitia is an evolutionarily conserved structure down to organisms that have hemolymph (i.e. minimal pressure), highlighting its importance. Single cell characterization shows adventitia undergo huge changes in different vascular diseases. To date, no therapies target cellular changes in the adventitia. We want to understand (1) which cell(s) in the adventitia modify vascular diseases, (2) how do they do it, and (3) how can we modify the adventitia to target diseases?

Human Genetics to Cellular Mechanisms
Human genetics is a powerful way to discover new disease modifiers. Hundreds of human variants have been identified that alter risk of vascular diseases including atherosclerosis and aneurysms, but very few have ever been utilized to treat diseases due to our poor understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie each disease signal. We leverage multi-omic data that we generated from human tissues and cell cultures in combination with in vitro models and CRISPR screens to understand (1) which gene(s) are associated with each genetic signal, and (2) which cell(s) and biological processes do these genes act through and (3) how this information can be leveraged to develop novel theraputics.