Ramnathan (Ram) Kadirvel, Ph.D.

The research program of Ramanathan (Ram) Kadirvel, Ph.D., is focused on the study of cerebral saccular aneurysms.

Dr. Kadirvel's research group has strong collaborations with interventional radiologists, vascular biologists, biochemists, and biomedical and mechanical engineers at Mayo Clinic and other leading institutions.

This multidisciplinary approach permits them to study — in a rabbit model of saccular aneurysms — aneurysmal biological changes in concert with the alteration of hemodynamic factors in different spatial locations.

Dr. Kadirvel and his colleagues also use proteomic, genomic, histological and immunological tools to study cellular and molecular changes in aneurysms. The collaborative environment at Mayo Clinic enables them to employ Doppler, MRI, CT and 3-D angiography techniques for imaging the aneurysmal changes and analyzing hemodynamic changes in the aneurysmal wall using computation flow dynamic modeling.

Focus areas

• Understanding the mechanisms responsible for growth and rupture of aneurysms
• Characterizing the mechanisms of aneurysm healing following endovascular therapy
• Developing new therapeutic methods for the clinical management of cerebral aneurysms, including systemic therapy and local delivery of drugs and stem cells

Significance to patient care

Dr. Kadirvel's research program aims to substantially improve the tools available for studying new treatments for brain aneurysms, allowing individualized treatment plans to be devised and carried out for individual patients.