Profile: ECCRI—cardiovascular research at the heart of Emory

To figure this out, the ECCRI scientist teamed up with Don Giddens, a professor at the nearby Wallace H Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, who studies fluid dynamics. The team's current hypothesis is that the force of the blood flowing through the arteries can occasionally cause the atherosclerotic plaque to loosen and break off, causing a total blockage of the artery and subsequent heart attack.