Title

Going With the Flow: A Digital Twin’s Guide to Fluid Mechanics in the Human Body

Abstract

Fluid mechanics in the human body plays an essential role in regulating physiological processes, determining pathological scenarios and governing efficacy of surgical or medical treatments. The cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems provide critical examples where advanced understanding of fluid flows can directly enable solutions impacting human health. This is especially considering that cardiovascular diseases like heart attack and stroke remain the leading global causes of death and disability.

Studying fluid mechanics in the human body remains exceptionally challenging, with limited imaging or benchtop modeling avenues, yielding computational or in silico investigations as a valuable alternative. This seminar will showcase our interdisciplinary research, education, and workforce training program centered on unraveling flow and transport phenomena in the human body. We will share some of our research advances in developing custom in silico models using physics-based and AI/ML techniques, and pairing them with medical imaging and benchtop modeling, to study blood flow and understand formation and breakage of blood clots.

We will illustrate how understanding of detailed flow features enables developing new diagnostic tools for stroke, informs the design and deployment of life-saving devices such as mechanical circulatory support systems, and reveals whether sufficient drug reaches a disease site for a drug-based therapy.Together these research accomplishments converge on a vision for developing next generation Digital Twins to advance healthcare technologies, surgical planning, and device design.