Session: Rising Stars of Mechanical Engineering Celebration & Showcase

Paper Number: 148217

148217 - Career: Unraveling Mechanisms of Mechanical Degeneration in Elastin 

We establish a new high-fidelity modeling framework for healthy and degenerated elastin as a tool to resolve the impacts of pathological physicochemical stressors on mechanics at the nanoscale and identify specific drivers to the loss of mechanical function of elastic tissues. The PI's recent development of the first all-atom model of the elastin precursor tropoelastin lays a foundation for systematically probing deleterious stimuli independently and in combination. This research will establish a multiscale digital twin of healthy and degenerated elastin to elucidate how key physicochemical stressors, specifically glycation and non-enzymatic crosslinking, ectopic calcification, enzymatic proteolysis, oxidative damage, racemization, lipid peroxidation, and carbamylation contribute to structural change, impact mechanical function independently and cooperatively, and disrupt tightly coupled hydration water dynamics with unstructured elastin. This work will provide: 1) validated computational tools to characterize the multiscale structure and mechanical response of elastin, with applications to other heterogeneous, hierarchical disordered molecular systems; 2) fundamental insight into the role of hydration water in such systems; 3) mechanistic understanding of likely specific paths to loss of function in elastin during aging and disease; and 4) an educational program to engage and retain diverse students.

Presenting Author: Anna Tarakanova University of Connecticut

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Anna Tarakanova is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on advancing molecular, multiscale and data-driven modeling methods to study the structure, function and mechanics of complex nanoscale biological materials. These tools provide the foundation to ask essential questions about the behavior of tissues such as arterial elastic tissue and bone, and to repurpose molecules for new functions like improved immunogenicity, thermal stability or resilience in aging. In particular, her work aims to characterize extracellular matrix proteins including elastin, collagen and fibrillin, and their role in the context of aging and human disease. She received her BS from Cornell University, and her MS and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Tarakanova leads a multi-disciplinary research program funded by NIH and NSF, among other sources, and is a recipient of various awards including the NSF Career Award, UConn-AAUP Research Excellence in Research and Creativity Award, InCHIP Junior Faculty Research Excellence Award, and the Mara H. Wasburn Early Engineering Educator Award.

Authors:

Anna Tarakanova University of Connecticut