Lara Abdelmohsen - 2026 Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Championship Presentation at CMU

Duration: 3:10 518 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Lara Abdelmohsen's presentation focuses on understanding stroke risks in adults with sickle cell disease by examining the critical role of the Circle of Willis, a unique circular network of blood vessels that supplies the brain with oxygen and nutrients. She uses the analogy of a roundabout to explain how this anatomical structure protects the brain; just as traffic can be rerouted around a construction zone on one street, blood flow can bypass a blocked vessel within the circle to continue nourishing the brain. However, in patients with sickle cell disease, red blood cells lose their flexible shape and become rigid and curved, causing them to clump together and obstruct these vital pathways, which significantly increases the risk of stroke. While medical advancements have successfully improved outcomes for children with this condition, a significant gap remains when these patients transition into adulthood. The presentation highlights the case of a patient named Erica, who could be monitored effectively in childhood using ultrasound probes placed on the forehead to detect high blood flow speeds indicative of stroke risk. Unfortunately, this non-invasive method becomes unreliable in adults because their skulls thicken with age, preventing ultrasound waves from penetrating deeply enough to measure internal vessel health accurately. Consequently, doctors currently lack a reliable way to predict whether an adult patient like Erica will suffer a stroke, despite the fact that sixty percent of them experience one during their adult years. To address this critical diagnostic challenge, Lara's research utilizes MRI images and patient-specific data to build advanced mathematical models that simulate blood flow dynamics within the Circle of Willis. Unlike general assessments, these computational models provide detailed insights into individual patients, revealing differences in blood flow patterns and pressure as high as seventy percent between those who suffer strokes and those who do not. This approach offers a solution that is both non-invasive and highly reliable, overcoming the limitations of traditional ultrasound technology in older individuals. Ultimately, the goal of this work is to lay the foundation for future diagnostic and therapeutic tools specifically designed for this understudied adult population. By developing models that accurately reflect the unique physiology of adults with sickle cell disease, researchers can move beyond the current inability to predict stroke risks effectively. This shift from childhood-focused monitoring to robust adult-specific analysis promises to transform clinical practice, enabling timely interventions that could save lives and improve the long-term prognosis for patients navigating their twenties, thirties, and beyond.

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Our eighth presenter is Lara Abdelm. Lara's presentation is the brains roundabout understanding stroke in adults with cickle cell disease. Today I will be introducing you to a very important group of blood vessels that come together to form an anatomy called the circleis. The circle of is the primary pathway that allows blood from your heart to reach your brain and its unique circular shape allows it to protect our brain from stroke. To understand how it does this, we can think of it like a big roundabout. So for example, traffic and construction in Oakland. If Forbes Avenue is blocked, they can reroute cars to Fifth Avenue or a different street. Right? Similarly, if one blood vessel in the circle of Phillis is blocked, blood can be rerouted through another vessel to continue supplying the brain with energy and nutrients. But what happens if this rerouting mechanism is no longer efficient? This is what we see happening in patients with cickle cell disease where red blood cells change shape from a circular flexible shape to a more curved and curved and rigid shape. This causes them to clump together and block blood flow leading to stroke. Now life-changing progress has been made when it comes to protecting or predicting stroke risk in children with cickle cell disease. Let's take a patient called Erica for example. She goes to see the doctor. The doctor will take an ultrasound probe and place it on her forehead to measure how fast blood in the circle of Willis is flowing. If it is flowing very fast, that means Erica is at a high risk of stroke and treatment guidelines are implemented immediately. But with this intervention, Erica can now live past 15 years of age. But what happens when Erica goes into adult years like 20s or 30s? She goes to the doctor. they can no longer predict whether Erica will be having a stroke even though there's a 60% chance she gets a stroke in adulthood. And why is that? Why can't we use ultrasound? Because ultrasound waves can't penetrate through our skulls as as we get older, our skulls become thicker. So then how do we understand why adults with cickle cell disease are getting stroke? This is where my work comes in where I take patient data and MRI images of blood vessels in the brain and I use them to build mathematical models that allow us to simulate how blood is moving through the circle of fulis. These models are not general. They are patient specific and through these models we have found differences in blood flow patterns and blood pressure in the brain of up to 70% when we compared adults who have stroke and adults with cle cell disease who don't have stroke. This is a big contribution because if we want to protect this underststudied population from stroke, we need adult specific models that are non-invasive, patient specific and reli more reliable than ultrasound so that we can lay the foundation that future diagnostic and therapeutic tools depend on. Thank you very much.