Senior Tallula Wynia became a human physiology major because she wants to help people live healthily from the beginning of their lives until the end. 

This summer, Wynia participated in the VPRI Undergraduate Fellowship at the University of Oregon, conducting research in the Aging and Vascular Physiology Lab run by Ashley Walker, associate professor of human physiology in the College of Arts and Sciences. Wynia’s research involves looking into the effects of large artery stiffness, particularly changes in elastin protein expression. Fewer elastin proteins mean stiffer arteries. 

“The project I worked on this summer for OVPRI is trying to find out the effects of changes to the quality of the arteries and the proteins expressed in those arteries,” said Wynia. 

She is using a mouse model of large artery stiffness and comparing protein expression in mice with elastin haploinsufficiencies—which means they genetically have fewer elastin proteins—as well as with mice that have normal levels of elastin proteins. Wynia is also looking into possible sex differences in protein expression.

Wynia is working under doctoral candidate Emily Reeve, who is interested in exploring the interplay between cardiovascular aging and Alzheimer’s disease. In general, the Aging and Vascular Physiology Lab focuses on Alzheimer’s disease because of the role cardiovascular decline, typically seen in aging individuals, plays in its development.

 “[The study of] aging, in general, is a field that is becoming a lot more popular because people are living longer now than they ever were, so we’re seeing all these diseases of aging that people didn’t previously see,” said Reeve.

Reeve’s projects examine both the effects of large artery stiffness, as well as potential intervention strategies to mitigate or prevent large artery stiffness and related diseases, like Alzheimer's disease. She says that it’s important to get to the root cause of what’s really happening while we’re aging because she believes a lot of these diseases impact each other. By preventing one disease, we could prevent other aging-related diseases as well.

 “It’s not just the brain or it’s not just the heart, the whole body is interconnected,” she said. "It's important to take a multi-faceted approach because of how all these body systems connect with each other.” 

Reeve explained that this summer Tallula was looking into the mechanisms of arterial stiffness rather than interventions against it. Her project aimed to understand which proteins change in the large arteries when disease or illnesses develop to pinpoint if there are differences in these proteins between organisms with or without stiff arteries. She also looked into whether those differences are leading to the functional differences they have seen and if there were differences based on biological sex. 

The researchers hope their work will motivate advancements in and related to interventions that help prevent arterial stiffness and Alzheimer’s disease.

“Our hope is that by showing that large artery stiffness has this effect on the brain we can propel the field forward to do more intervention targeting stiffness,” said Walker. “There are a few existing therapeutics, as well as the potential to develop new drugs that target arterial stiffness and could be beneficial in Alzheimer’s disease. But these have not been tested yet in human patients.”

Looking Ahead

Reeve hopes that her work and the work Wynia is assisting with will help improve not only lifespans but also “healthspans”—how long a person lives a healthy life.

Wynia hopes to begin a health-related career after graduation with the goal of going to medical school. She is interested in working with pregnant individuals and babies. She says that her experience researching the cardiovascular system and related diseases will be helpful in her future career.

“I’m hoping to go into fertility science, genetics, obstetrics, and gynecology,” Wynia said. “That said, cardiovascular and reproductive health play an intricate role in each other, so it’s hard to say I don’t want to go into vascular science because I think it has much to do with what I want to pursue.”

All three researchers agree that full-time summer research is valuable for undergraduate students and their learning experience. Wynia says that she would not have been able to stay and do research on campus without the VPRI fellowship and is grateful for the opportunity. 

“By being able to commit more time to the lab, the students are able to see all the steps of the scientific process and they are able to take on their own piece of a project and work more independently,” said Walker. 

— By Stephanie Metzger, Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation