Sharan Ramaswamy

Dr. Sharan Ramaswamy earned a PhD in Biomedical Engineering (BME) from the University of Iowa in 2003. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at the NIH and a research faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Ramaswamy joined the BME department at Florida International University (FIU) in December 2009 as an Assistant Professor. He is currently a tenured Associate Professor at FIU. His research expertise is in the areas of Cardiovascular Mechanobiology, Regenerative Medicine and Mechanics. He directs the Cardiovascular Therapeutics Laboratory’s (CV-PEUTICS Lab) at FIU. He has numerous scientific articles published in his discipline in leading journals, proceedings and book chapters. His work has been funded by the American Heart Association (AHA), the Miami Heart Research Institute, the National Science Foundation, private industry and academia. He is a Fellow of the AHA and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Dr. Ramaswamy holds a patent in the area of bioreactors for cardiovascular regenerative medicine and a provisional patent in enhanced, stem cell-derived exosome production for the purposes of cardiac regeneration. He is an advisor/mentor to several graduate and undergraduate students and has actively sought to promote diversity and encourage college students from under-represented minority groups in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to undertake research opportunities in his lab. He has also participated in considerable outreach mentorship efforts to schools in the Miami-Dade County Public School System. In 2017, he received the William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award from the McKnight Doctoral Fellows Program, Florida Education Fund. He has served as the Interim-Chair of the College of Engineering and Computing’s Faculty Council and is a member of the diversity committee in the BME department at FIU.

Research Interests:

• Cell and tissue mechanics with application in cardiovascular regenerative medicine

Research Advancements:

• Biomechanically-derived diagnostics and regenerative therapies for cardiovascular medicine.

Research Area:

• Engineered Tissue Model Systems

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy - PhD University of Iowa (1998 — 2003)
• Master of Engineering - MEng National University of Singapore (1995 — 1998)
• Bachelor of Science in Engineering - BSE Arizona State University (1990 — 1994)

Companies

• Associate Professor with Tenure Florida International University - College of Engineering & Computing (2017)
• Assistant Professor Florida International University - College of Engineering & Computing (2009 — 2017)
• Visiting Research Assistant Professor University of Pittsburgh (2007 — 2009)
• Visiting Post-Doctoral Research Fellow The National Institutes of Health (2003 — 2007)
• Research Assistant University of Iowa (1998 — 2003)
• French Government Scholar Ecole centrale de Lyon (1997 — 1998)
• Research Engineer National University of Singapore (1995 — 1997)

Selected Publications

1) Gonzalez BA, Pour Issa E, Mankame OV, Bustillos J, Cuellar A, Rodriguez AJ, Scholl F, Bibevski S, Hernandez L, Brehier V, Casares M, Rivas K, Morales P, Lopez J, Wagner J, Bibevski J, Agarwal A, George F, Ramaswamy S: Porcine small intestinal submucosa mitral valve material responses support acute somatic growth. Tissue Eng Part A. 2019 Dec 5. doi: 10.1089/ten.TEA.2019.0220.

2) Tesfamariam MD, Mirza AM, Chaparro D, Ali AZ, Montalvan R, Saytashev I, Gonzalez BA, Barreto A, Ramella-Roman J, Hutcheson JD, Ramaswamy S: Elastin-Dependent Aortic Heart Valve Leaflet Curvature Changes During Cyclic Flexure. Bioengineering (Basel). 2019 May 7;6(2). pii: E39. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering6020039, 2019.

3) Gonzalez B, Hernandez L, Bibevski S, Scholl F, Brehier V, Bibevski J, Rivas K, Morales P, Wagner J, Lopez J, Ramaswamy S: Recapitulation of Human Bio-scaffold Mitral Valve Growth in the Baboon Model. Circulation, 2018, Vol 138, No. Suppl_1, Abstract 11348.

4) Castellanos G, Nasim S, Medina DA, Rath S, Ramaswamy S: Stem Cell cytoskeletal responses to pulsatile flow in heart valve tissue engineering studies. Front. Cardiovasc. Med. 5:58. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2018.00058, 2018.

5) Williams A, Nasim S, Salinas M, Moshkforoush A, Tsoukias N, Ramaswamy S: A “sweet-spot” for fluid-induced oscillations in the conditioning of stem cell-based engineered heart valve tissues. J Biomech. 2017 Dec 8;65:40-48. doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2017.09.035. Epub 2017 Oct 7. 6) Mankame O, Valdes-Cruz L, Bibevski S, Scholl F, Baez I, Ramaswamy S: Early Hydrodynamic Assessment of a Porcine Small Intestinal Sub-Mucosa Bioscaffold Valve for Mitral Valve Replacement. The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), 2017, March 69(11), Supplement: 590.

7) Ramaswamy S, Lordeus M, Mankame OV, Valdes-Cruz L, Bibevski S, Bell SM, Baez I, Scholl F. Hydrodynamic Assessment of Aortic Valves Prepared from Porcine Small Intestinal Submucosa. Cardiovasc Eng Technol. 2017, March; 8(1): 30-40.

8) Salinas M, Rath S, Villegas A, Unnikrishnan V, Ramaswamy S: Relative Effects of Fluid Oscillations and Nutrient Transport in the In Vitro Growth of Valvular Tissues, Cardiovascular Engineering and Technology, 2016 Jun;7(2):170-81. doi: 10.1007/s13239-016-0258-x. Epub 2016 Feb 8.

9) Rath S, Salinas M, Villegas A, Ramaswamy S. Differentiation and Distribution of Marrow Stem Cells in Flex-Flow Environments Demonstrate Support of the Valvular Phenotype. PLOS ONE, 2015 Nov 4;10(11):e0141802. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141802.

10) Ramaswamy S, Boronyak SM, Le T, Holmes A, Sotiropoulos F, Sacks MS. A novel bioreactor for mechanobiological studies of engineered heart valve tissue formation under pulmonary arterial physiological flow conditions. J Biomech Eng. 2014 Dec;136(12):121009.