My Research

My research is assessing cardiovascular disease risk factors and ultrasound imaging of blood vessels in children. For my research project I will be working in collaboration with Dr. William Saltarelli, PhD. I first got interested in this research when I was a freshman, and Dr. Salt was talking about research that one of his students had started. I finally decided to get involved my junior year, primarily because of the McNair Scholars Program. The risk factors that a team of researchers and I will be assessing include: body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and aerobic capacity. As for the ultrasound imaging, we will be looking at the carotid intima-media thickness (IMT). This is the thickness of the artery wall in the carotid artery. We will also look at the flow-mediated dilation of the brachial artery. The brachial artery will have a baseline measurement, and then it will be occluded for 5 minutes with a blood pressure cuff. Then when the five minutes are up, the air will be released from the blood pressure cuff. The imaging of the blood vessel will be taken every 30 seconds on a 10 second loop. When all the images have been taken, the dilation of the blood vessel will be measured.

When all the data has been collected, it will be analyzed with a statistic program to determine the correlations. The thought is that the children with more risk factors with have impaired blood vessels.

It started off that I was going to get subjects through the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe, but things have changed due to timing. I will just be working with general population children. As I get more advanced with my experience and my research, I will progress to working with the population that I want. For now I will be working with a team of undergraduate researchers, who share the same passion for this topic and research.