Shriya Veluri and Tian Yuan

First Name: 
Shriya
Last Name: 
Veluri
Mentor: 
Dr. Warren Burggren
Abstract: 
Vascular malformations (VMs) present as a tangle of abnormal blood vessels in soft tissues. Little is known about the etiology of VMs; however, a link between exposure to toxicants, such as those found in military burn pits, and increased risk of VMs has been identified in military personnel and their families. Unfortunately, the lack of model systems inhibits studies regarding treatments for VMs. Thus, this project was designed to identify methods to consistently induce VMs in order to deeply study them. Essentially, a novel Wick Drug Delivery System, which involves a long cotton "wick" inserted in a serological pipet, was created in order to allow for the chronic, precise exposure of a desired drug onto the surface of the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) of a shell-less chicken embryo culture to gain a deeper understanding of how VMs developed. Initial testing seems to allude to the notion that those embryos exposed to ethanol for a period of time show a decrease in angiogenesis, or the development of an organism's vasculature. Further experimentation and data analysis will hopefully confirm this initial speculation, which would provide vital information about VMs.
Poster: 
Developing a Drug Delivery System for Shell-less Chicken Embryo, Gallus domesticus