Shaka in the lab next to a microscope setup

Shaka X ‘26

(he/him)

Home Department: Biomedical Engineering (Schwartz Lab)

Research Project: Understanding endothelial blood flow direction sensing

Local patterns of fluid shear stress from blood flow in arteries have been linked to vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis.Unidirectional, high shear stress is athero-protective whereas low and multidirectional shear stress promotes vascular inflammation and atherosclerosis. Previous work showed that these different responses depend on the direction of blood flow with respect to cell morphology but mechanisms endothelial cells use to sense blood flow direction are largely unknown. My project aims to elucidate this fundamental mechanism that governs vascular physiology and disease.

Relevant Publications

Wang C, Baker BM, Chen CS, Schwartz MA. (2013) Endothelial cell sensing of flow direction.

Fluorescence imaging of actin in cells under shear stress

Endothelial actin fibers align in the direction of laminar shear stress induced by flow to recapitulate arterial blood flow conditions. Cells are imaged via immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy.