Rhonda Prisby had a plan for her master’s degree in exercise physiology. She expected to work in a cardiac rehabilitation clinic.
Then a professor mentioned something she hadn’t considered—her potential as a researcher. And Prisby’s life took a fascinating turn toward a Ph.D. and work that may produce great gains for people with vascular disorders or bone trouble.
Now an associate professor in the University’s Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, Prisby studies blood vessels in bones and has produced preliminary data suggesting that aging and disease can close off the vascular system, with the blocked vessels becoming bone-like. It’s not the same as atherosclerosis, the narrowing of blood vessels caused by a build-up of plaque. Those blood vessels still look like blood vessels, she said. The vessels she is studying look like bone—hard, closed off, producing “microvascular dead space.” Read more on UD Research