Daniela Valdez-Jasso
UC San Diego
Seminar Information
Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rapidly progressive vasculopathy that commonly results in intractable right-heart failure and premature death. Transplantation of the lung remains the only cure, suggesting our limited understanding of the pathophysiology. Here I present recent results from my research laboratory using a rat animal model of PAH. A multiscale approach is used to elucidate the organ- (hemodynamic), tissue- (structural and mechanical), and cellular (molecular) response of the pressure-overloaded right ventricle, the dynamic vascular remodeling process in PAH and their ventriculo-vascular interaction. Experimental findings are incorporated into mechanistic mathematical models for testable quantitative formulations of organ and tissue function. We will discuss how our experimental data measured at different scales are implemented in the computational models to determine underlying mechanisms governing PAH, and how the models are interrogated to determine their prediction capabilities and infer on data and model uncertainty.
Prof. Daniela Valdez-Jasso received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Applied Mathematics in 2005 and 2008, and her doctorate in Biomathematics in 2010 all at North Carolina State University. She did her postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In 2013, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she established her research laboratory in biomechanics, mechanobiology and multi- scale mathematical modeling of the heart and lung of pulmonary arterial hypertension. In 2017, she was recruited to the Bioengineering Department at the University of California San Diego. Her work has been funded by the American Heart Association, a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the Wu Tsai Foundation. She has been an active mentor for minority students and an advocate for diversity and inclusion at her campuses and for national professional societies. In 2020 she was the campus-wide recipient of the Faculty Inclusion Excellence Award at UC San Diego. At the national level, she is the Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering Bioengineering Division.