College of Engineering

David Haruch

College of Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Alisa Morss Clyne

Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics

Dr. Swathi Swaminathan Co-Mentor

Investigating the Effects Two Potential Anti Tumor Drugs on Angiogenesis

Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels from existing blood vessels, is important to tumor growth and metastasis . Endothelial cells, which line the inner walls of blood vessels, direct angiogenesis and are therefore a target for many chemotherapy drugs. We hypothesized that endothelial cell tube formation, an in vitro angiogenesis assay, would be changed by several inhibitors of metabolic activity and cell adhesion. To test this hypothesis, human umbilical vein endothelial cells were sparsely seeded onto Matrigel in serum-free media. The selected treatment was then added to the cells, and cells were imaged by phase contrast microscopy after 24 and 48 hours. Tube formation was quantified in the images by measuring the number and length of the tubes using ImageJ processing software. Multiple assays were performed and showed that none of the peptides affected endothelial tube formation. Since at least one of the peptides has been shown to decrease angiogenesis in other assays, future work will investigate the peptides’ effects using a different in vitro angiogenesis assay, such as an aortic ring assay.