We are excited to announce that Francesca Menna has begun her 3-month researcher exchange between University of Rennes and Tampere University this week. During her stay, she will be working on an exciting collaborative project that bridges research efforts between the SMASH-HCM teams in Rennes and Tampere. The teams will be integrating a system-level cardiovascular model developed in Rennes with detailed models of smooth muscle cells (a muscle cell type found in the walls of internal organs and blood vessels) and vessel walls created in Tampere.
Cardiovascular diseases often stem from, or lead to, alterations in blood flow and pressure. Vascular smooth muscle cells play a key role in sensing these hemodynamic changes and responding by contracting or relaxing to regulate vascular tone. While this mechanism is essential for maintaining stable circulation in healthy individuals, it can become disregulated in disease states.
Despite their importance, the precise biological processes that link and govern circulatory adaptation and vascular tone regulation remain poorly understood. Through this joint effort, we aim to uncover new insights into these mechanisms and contribute to a deeper understanding of cardiovascular regualtion in both health and disease, with a particular focus on HCM.
This work will be used as part of a multiscale integrated platform for systematic studies on the interplay between human HCM vascular and multiorgan response to predict risk and prognostics on lifestyle changes.
