Dr. Laura Ritter

 Abstract:  Atherosclerosis, the disease commonly referred to as hardening of the arteries is an inflammatory disease that is characterized by a build up of modified low density lipoproteins (LDL), apoptic cells and lipid laden immune cells (foam cells) in large muscular arteries.  Atherogenesis refers to the early stages of this disease. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of human mortality in the United States, Europe and much of Asia.  Atherosclerosis is the prominent type of CVD and cause of other factors of CVD.  The current study is of the biochemical aspects of atherogenesis, in particular the corruptive effect of modified LDL on immune cells and the resulting potential for a runaway inflammatory process. This is based in large part on Russell Ross’s paradigm of atherosclerosis as an inflammatory disease. We construct a mathematical model of the process and present it as a system on nonlinear, mostly parabolic partial differential equations.  Some analytical and numerical analyses of the model will be presented and discussed.