Yuliya Vengrenyuk, a Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering, received first prize for her poster, “Micro-CT Based Analysis of a New Paradigm for Vulnerable Plaque Rupture,” at the 6th International Conference on Medical Innovations, held last May in Vienna. The Mimics Innovation Award, which carries a $4,000 prize, is funded by Materialise, a medical imaging company based in Belgium. Working with co-authors Professors Sheldon Weinbaum and Luis Cardoso, Ms. Vengrenyuk built a three-dimensional model of a vulnerable plaque based on 3-D images obtained from a tissue sample. “With the model we can calculate stresses and predict the stability of a lesion and the likelihood of a rupture,” she said. “We can take a real lesion and predict the level of stress due to micro-calcifications in the fibrous cap. The effect depends on their shape and proximity to one another. That’s what makes them really dangerous.” Noting that a ruptured plaque caused the death of NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert, Ms. Vengrenyuk pointed out that better diagnostic techniques might be able to prevent such tragedies. “The problem is predicting which plaque is really dangerous,” she said. “Not all of them will rupture.” The team’s findings were also published as a paper in a special edition of the journal “Molecular and Cellular Biomechanics.”