Erasmus MC : Project number 4

Shear stress plays an important role in the patho-biology of the endothelium. Among others, it primes the endothelium for atherosclerotic plaque formation, which can be found at the low and oscillatory shear stress regions in the vasculature. However, evidence is accumulating for a role of high shear stress in plaque destabilization. This project focuses on the different (molecular) aspects of the role of low or high shear stress in the generation and destabilization of vulnerable plaques. For that reason studies are performed in an established animal model of vulnerable plaque formation as well as in patients that are treated for pathological lumen obstruction. For those studies a combination of computational fluid dynamics and advanced catheter based or non-invasive imaging techniques for the assessment of plaque composition is applied. Using the information from the before described studies, we investigate whether shear stress can contribute to prediction models of atherosclerotic plaque growth and events in a population based study.