Sepsis is the body’s extreme and dysregulated response to infection, a systemic event that floods the circulation with inflammatory signals and can push organs toward failure. Among its most insidious effects is damage to the endothelial cells, the thin layer of cells that lines every blood vessel and normally maintains a smooth, anticoagulant surface. When inflammation injures this lining, the vessel wall can flip from a protective state to a pro-clotting one. In some patients, this shift contributes to the formation of clots that obstruct small vessels, choking off blood supply to tissues and organs. Clots driven by sepsis-associated inflammation can, in severe cases, contribute to stroke and other vascular events, making it urgent to understand precisely how infection translates into thrombosis at the molecular level.

Mensah’s team will focus on a structure that has attracted growing attention in vascular biology: the glycocalyx, a delicate, gel-like coating that decorates the surface of healthy endothelial cells. Composed of membrane-bound proteins, sugar chains, and associated molecules, the glycocalyx acts as both a physical and biochemical buffer between the blood and the vessel wall. It helps repel circulating cells, moderates the passage of molecules, and presents a non-thrombogenic face to the bloodstream. During systemic infection, inflammatory mediators and enzymes can strip away or degrade this protective layer, exposing the underlying cell surface and altering the way the vessel interacts with blood components. A central aim of the WPI project is to define the molecular mechanisms responsible for this degradation, work that could reveal exactly how sepsis dismantles one of the vasculature’s key defenses.

The second major thread of the project concerns a protein with a pivotal role in normal hemostasis: von Willebrand factor. In healthy vessels, von Willebrand factor is tethered to the endothelial surface, anchored by components of the glycocalyx and associated binding partners that the Mensah laboratory intends to identify. Under inflammatory conditions, the protein detaches from the vessel wall and enters the circulating blood, where it can act as a recruitment platform for platelets, the small cellular fragments that aggregate to form clots. By charting which molecular tethers normally hold von Willebrand factor in place, and what happens to those anchors during infection, the researchers hope to explain how a system built to stop bleeding is subverted into one that promotes vessel-blocking clots.

The third objective is perhaps the most clinically ambitious: determining whether a damaged glycocalyx barrier can be rescued. If the protective coating can be restored or stabilized in the wake of sepsis-induced injury, the finding could point toward entirely new treatment strategies aimed not at dissolving clots after they form, but at preventing the vessel lining from becoming pro-thrombotic in the first place. Such an approach would represent a meaningful shift in thinking about sepsis care, where current interventions focus on controlling infection and supporting failing organs. Mensah and his student researchers will test whether the degradation process can be interrupted or reversed, a step the team describes as potentially paving the way for future sepsis therapies.

The project draws on Mensah’s broader research program, which examines the role of the glycocalyx in heart and lung disease. His work sits at the intersection of vascular biology and biomedical engineering, and his career reflects an unusually broad portfolio. He is a fellow of the American Heart Association and has previously devoted effort to the development of low-cost medical devices intended to expand healthcare access in low- and middle-income countries. That combination of fundamental mechanistic inquiry and practical, globally minded engineering shapes the ethos of the new grant, which treats rigorous laboratory training and meaningful mentorship as inseparable from the scientific questions themselves.

Mensah’s commitment to mentoring is rooted in his own trajectory. As a first-generation student from Africa, he credits mentors with guiding him through the preparation for doctoral studies and shaping his development as a researcher. He has said that he wants to pay those experiences forward by mentoring students and offering them genuine opportunities to conduct research. The NIH award operationalizes that commitment on a concrete scale: Mensah expects it will provide research opportunities to twelve WPI undergraduates. Those students will participate in course-related research projects, individual research work, and Major Qualifying Projects, the capstone experiences that every WPI undergraduate must complete in order to graduate. Embedding the sepsis research within this required structure means the work will reach students across the curriculum rather than remaining confined to a single laboratory cohort.

The Academic Research Enhancement Award program under which the grant is issued has a specific mission: supporting research training for undergraduate students at institutions, with the explicit goal of building research capacity while exposing students to the realities of scientific investigation. The WPI project is one of several new initiatives at the university funded through this program. For the students involved, the experience promises more than technical skill; it offers immersion in the full arc of a research problem, from reading the literature and formulating hypotheses to designing experiments, interpreting molecular data, and communicating findings. For the field, it represents an investment in the next generation of biomedical engineers at precisely the moment when questions about inflammation, coagulation, and vascular injury are becoming increasingly central to human health.

Mensah frames the dual purpose of the award in straightforward terms. The projects supported by the NIH, he notes, provide excellent training for students while also advancing fundamental understanding of human health. The work, he says, will establish an educational pipeline at WPI, enabling the university to train students in biology and prepare the next generation of biomedical engineers. If the laboratory succeeds on both fronts, the outcome will be twofold: a clearer molecular picture of how sepsis converts inflamed vessels into clot-forming surfaces, and a cohort of undergraduates who have already contributed to that discovery before beginning their professional careers. In a disease process as complex and deadly as sepsis-associated coagulation, progress on either front would be significant; progress on both, from a single laboratory, illustrates the model of research-integrated education that the grant is designed to support.

Subject of Research: NIH-funded undergraduate research into the molecular mechanisms linking sepsis-induced inflammation to blood clotting through glycocalyx degradation and von Willebrand factor release.

Article Title: Federal funding supports Worcester Polytechnic Institute student research into blood clots triggered by sepsis

Article References: Federal funding supports Worcester Polytechnic Institute student research into blood clots triggered by sepsis. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: sepsis, blood clots, glycocalyx, von Willebrand factor, endothelial cells, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, NIH grant, undergraduate research, biomedical engineering, inflammation, stroke, Solomon Mensah

The grant was first secured in 2023 by Andrea Dávalos, associate professor of biological sciences at SUNY Cortland, and Li Jin, professor of geology, with Mary Beth Voltura, associate professor of biological sciences, joining them to help develop the project. What began as a component of the Coregonine Restoration Framework, a binational plan representing eight U.S. states, three U.S. intertribal organizations and the Canadian province of Ontario to restore and conserve the coregonine subfamily of freshwater fish, has since expanded into wider opportunities for students, while keeping its focus firmly on aquatic life and the ecosystems that sustain it.

This year, the Cortland portion of the grant totaled 73,315 dollars, enough to support five Cortland students and two Oswego students in research placements across the state. Although the budget is modest by the standards of large research programs, the faculty behind the initiative argue that its impact is disproportionate to its size. Jin emphasized that the paid structure of the internships matters as much as the science itself, because it allows students to pursue valuable professional opportunities without the burden of financial stress that often forces undergraduates to choose between earning money and gaining research experience.

The internships are designed to immerse students in the full workflow of professional fisheries science. According to Dávalos, participants engage in original research, hone their communication skills and learn a variety of field and laboratory techniques used in fisheries work. Just as importantly, they interact daily with professionals, graduate students and professors, building the kind of networks that frequently shape career trajectories long before graduation. She described networking as one of the great aspects of the internship, noting that these relationships expose undergraduates to career paths they might never otherwise encounter.

Among this year’s participants, the placements spanned some of New York’s most important aquatic research institutions. Jonathan Hall worked at the Cornell Biological Field Station at Shackelton Point, Isabella Impellizzeri was based at SUNY Oswego, Minju Kim conducted her research at the New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell University, Vinoj Ramachandran worked with the Department of Environmental Conservation in Cortland, and Ava Schiff was placed at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Thousand Islands Biological Station. Each site offered a distinct window into the practice of fisheries and water-resources science.

Kim, a senior chemistry major with a minor in geographic information systems, spent her summer studying the effects of dam removal, a topic of growing importance as managers weigh the ecological benefits of restoring free-flowing rivers against the practical realities of aging infrastructure. Her work combined fieldwork, laboratory analysis and data processing, including bioindicator sampling, a technique that uses living organisms to assess environmental conditions over time. She said that participating in an active field research project provided invaluable insight into professional workflows and project execution, giving her a realistic picture of how environmental science is conducted outside the classroom.

The experience has already shaped Kim’s plans for life after graduation. She intends to pursue a career in environmental chemistry that applies environmental monitoring and sustainable ecosystem management, with a particular focus on water quality. Reflecting on the summer, she noted that the internship provided practical, professional skills in fieldwork and laboratory analysis that go beyond standard classroom theory, a distinction that many undergraduates only encounter for the first time in graduate school or their first job.

For Impellizzeri, a senior conservation biology major, the eight weeks at SUNY Oswego delivered a different but equally valuable set of skills centered on boat-based fieldwork. Her research contributed to weekly tows for larval fish at four sites, with the collected samples subsequently tested and identified in the laboratory. Along the way she completed New York boater safety training and drove a boat for the first time, and learned how to manage sample collection and water profile measurements on the water. She described the hands-on experience as invaluable, particularly the multitude of skills she acquired regarding boat procedures and safety.

The internship has also helped Impellizzeri clarify her next steps. Still weighing her career options after graduation, she said that working near the water proved highly interesting, and that she is now considering a job at one of the Great Lakes, whether conservation based or nature based in general. Her trajectory illustrates one of the central aims of the program: to give undergraduates enough direct exposure to fisheries science that they can make informed decisions about graduate study and employment in the field.

Faculty involved in the program say the combination of paid positions, covered housing costs and credit-earning placements has been central to its success, removing financial barriers while ensuring the experience carries formal academic weight. Applications for the Summer 2027 internships, the final year currently funded under the USGS grant, will open in the spring semester. As the Coregonine Restoration Framework continues its multi-state, multi-national effort to conserve a vulnerable subfamily of freshwater fish, the program’s graduates carry with them the field techniques, laboratory skills and professional connections that the next generation of fisheries scientists will need.

Subject of Research: Paid undergraduate fisheries research internships in New York funded by a USGS grant tied to the Coregonine Restoration Framework

Article Title: Students land research internships at fisheries across New York

Article References: Students land research internships at fisheries across New York. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: USGS grant, SUNY Cortland, SUNY Oswego, fisheries internships, undergraduate research, Coregonine Restoration Framework, dam removal, larval fish, water quality, New York State, aquatic science, fieldwork