A Rockbridge County native is making waves in the medical field, researching how to better heal wounds in arteries after heart surgery.
Meghan Sedovy is a Ph.D. candidate in Virginia Tech’s Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health Graduate Program.
Sedovy recently received a 3-year, $101,000 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to explore wound healing in arteries after heart surgery. She is a graduate research assistant in the lab of Scott Johnstone, Ph.D., assistant professor at Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and the institute’s Center for Vascular and Heart Research.
Her research is based on a discovery she made at Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. She found that arteries used in heart bypass surgeries are often stripped of a crucial layer of endothelial cells. Without this layer, a surgery’s chances of long-term success can be significantly impaired.
The Fralin Biomedical Research Institute is a top-level research institute of Virginia Tech.
“I just want to make cellular-level discoveries, to really understand what’s happening in disease and why it’s happening,” Sedovy said.
She’s partly motivated by growing up in a rural setting.
“Cardiovascular disease is the most deadly disease there is, but it does disproportionately affect rural communities. The desire to help my community is an inspiration for wanting to be able to correct these problems and keep people from dying from preventable diseases,” Sedovy said.
Sedovy grew up very familiar with the medical field. Her father is a surgeon, and her mother is a nurse. She said she spent hours around the hospital, even observing surgeries in Rockbridge County.
She hopes to see her research one day applied to the clinical setting. Her current research could improve outcomes after heart surgery.