Sravanti Kusuma, a fourth year PhD student in Dr. Sharon Gerecht’s lab, has been awarded a National Research Service Award (NRSA) from NHLBI to support her project, “Directed Derivation of Endothelial Cells from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells.” She aims to use this award to derive functional endothelial cells, which form the inner lining of blood vessels, from human induced pluripotent stem cells in order to investigate new and exciting possibilities for stem cells to provide patient-specific vascular therapies. Sravanti was born in Atlanta, GA and received her BA in Chemical Engineering from MIT.