Graduate student wins American Heart Association Fellowship

By Mary Catherine Frantz, intern, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture

PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University Ph.D. student Thu (Lily) Ly has won a prestigious graduate fellowship from the American Heart Association.

The fellowship, which includes two years of financial support, provides mentored research training for graduate students to encourage careers in cardiovascular and stroke research. Ly is conducting research on mutations in a heart muscle protein that are linked to dilated cardiomyopathy and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

She received the fellowship after presenting her preliminary research at the 61st Biophysical Society annual meeting last February in New Orleans, La. Her travel to this meeting was supported by the Russ and Anne Fuller Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Research, of which she has been a recipient since 2016.

Ly Thu, in WSU lab, conducts research on mutations in heart muscle protein
Ly Thu, in WSU lab, conducts research on mutations in heart muscle protein

Ly is a graduate research assistant at WSU’s Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering. She holds an undergraduate degree in bioengineering from WSU and is working on her Ph.D. with a focus on protein engineering. Ly also has participated in the National Institute of Health Protein Biotechnology Training Program at WSU. The program offers state-of-the-art training in biotechnology, with an emphasis on protein science.