Alum researches w
Contents Feature Stories Alum finds way to treat blood vessel diseases Prof translates German letters for new book Journalism alum uses career for advocacy New C21 director outlines Center’s future Biologists build frog arena to test mating calls Japanese club lends a hand with art exhibit
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Sarah Parker is studying what’s happening inside large blood vessels to find better ways to diagnose and treat threatening conditions like atherosclerosis and aneurysms. A UWM alum who earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in kinesiology and psychology at UWM, Parker is a researcher at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles. She and her team are looking at the molecular “signatures” of these dangerous diseases. Atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque on artery walls, contributes to coronary artery disease, a major cause of death in the country. Aortic aneurysms weaken the arteries and predispose them to rupturing. Cedars Sinai is one of the top three centers in the country studying these types of diseases. “We need to diagnose them earlier because they are ‘indolent diseases’ – you don’t know you have them typically until they’ve become symptomatic, which is usually pretty bad,” Parker says. “The only treatment we know of is surgery.” A competitive speedskater Parker originally started her academic career at UWM because she was a speedskater, and Milwaukee’s Pettit National Ice Center was a top training facility. She initially was interested in studying sports psychology and sports medicine, and had the opportunity to work in labs in the College of Health Sciences and the Department of Psychology. With the encouragement of mentors and faculty in psychology and health sciences, she became interested in the neurological side of psychology. After earning her master’s at UWM, Parker went on to the Medical College of Wisconsin for her doctorate, focusing on using high-tech tools called mass spectrometers to get a view of biology at the molecular level. “I was really attracted to that area of research…getting a systems-level view of how biology works. You have all these molecules that come together in particular combinations to drive a process.” Her work led to research in bioinformatics, learning how to convert data into actual knowledge that can be applied to new hypotheses and new areas of biology, she said.
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After doing postdoctoral work at Johns Hopkins, she joined the Smidt Heart Institute research labs at Cedars Sinai in 2018. In her position as a faculty researcher, she said, she has the opportunity to work with Dr. Jennifer Van Eyk, one of the top researchers in the field. Parker has received a prestigious K99-R00 grant from the National Institutes of Health to help support her
