August 8, 2025
Dr. Roger Guillory II, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and collaborator Daisy Sahoo, PhD, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and WIS Founders Circle Endowed Professor, have been awarded the CVRC Multi-Principal Investigator (MPI) Pilot Award for their project, “Combining Serum Lipid Status and Machine Learning to Predict the Degradation Rate of Arterial Mg Implants.” The awarded project is expected to improve the predictability of the degradation rate of bioabsorbable magnesium stents, a new technology that stands to replace current permanent metal stents for the treatment of progressive stenosis in vascular disease.
The practice of treating vascular stenosis with stents is rife with long-term complications, many of which are due to the permanent nature of the traditional implant. Attempts to relieve these complications have led to the development of bioabsorbable stents, which are comprised of metals like magnesium. The bioabsorbable stents are temporary, providing structural stability in the short term and fully absorbing after the vessel completes the healing process. The bioabsorbable stent of choice features a magnesium-based material that is favored for its marked durability and degradation profile; however the degradation rates of these magnesium stents tends to be variable, making prediction of their temporary support time for a given patient somewhat challenging.
While the cause of the stents’ varying degradation rates is largely unknown, Drs. Guillory and Sahoo hypothesize that this variability is quantifiably and predictably affected by a patient’s lipid profile. In this project, Dr. Guillory will combine his expertise in bioabsorbable metals with Dr. Sahoo’s vast knowledge of lipoprotein biology. Together they seek to develop a framework in which the relationship between a patients’ serum lipid profile and the degradation rate of a magnesium-based bioabsorbable stent can be modeled and predicted using machine learning approaches. Findings will help lay the foundation for precision-engineered stents, which can be uniquely manufactured to anticipate lipid-related factors that influence degradation across diverse patient profiles.
Dr. Roger Guillory is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Marquette University and Medical College of Wisconsin Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering and holds a secondary appointment to the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin. In addition, he is director of the Regenerative Engineered Biomaterials Lab, with research interests that include cellular and molecular interactions of bioactive materials, bioabsorbable materials, and engineering biomaterials for medical devices.
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This competitive $30,000 MPI Pilot Award supports early-stage, high-risk/high-reward research projects that address critical questions in cardiovascular health or disease through a team science approach. The award is intended for new collaborations between multiple PIs—either entirely new partnerships or existing ones exploring a completely new research direction. The goal is to generate preliminary data or proof of concept that will strengthen future applications for external funding.
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