Shathiyah Kulandavelu, PhDShathiyah Kulandavelu is a PhD candidate in the Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, working in the laboratory of Dr. S.L. Adamson. Her research focuses on the role of nitric oxide in mediating pregnancy-related cardiovascular changes. In pregnancy, vasodilation is the primary event leading to maternal cardiovascular changes observed, but the mechanisms involved are not fully understood. Vasodilator, nitric oxide increases in normal pregnancy and lack of nitric oxide has been implicated in pregnancy-induced hypertension (preeclampsia). There is emerging data, which suggest that women who had preeclamptic pregnancies had higher incidence of death by cardiovascular disease in late life as compared to women with normal pregnancies. Thus in this current work, Shathiyah will investigate the role of nitric oxide in mediating pregnancy-related cardiovascular changes and examine its role in preeclampsia by using mice which lack the eNOS gene.
This work will enhance our understanding of the mechanisms controlling the normal cardiovascular changes during pregnancy, leading to improve treatments for problems such as preeclampsia. Furthermore, increasing our understanding of the hormonal regulation of cardiovascular function could have wider implications. Diseases such as heart failure has been shown to involve endothelial dysfunction, therefore eNOS knockout mouse models may help us to better understand the regulation of cardiovascular function, and lead to better treatments using nitric oxide in heart failure in non-pregnant patients.
Left to Right: Shathiyah Kulandavelu, Mrs. Lorne Phenix, Dr. Margaret Rand (Chair, Awards & Scholarships Committee)