Advanced Biomedical Modeling Workshop: From Image to Simulation

On Oct 28th, SIMULIA hosted its first Biomedical Symposium and Workshop at the Hayes Mansion in San Jose, CA, which exceeded capacity with more than 50 people present. The goal was to highlight the exciting new opportunities now possible in the biomedical engineering field and provide detailed instruction on how to use realistic simulation to move us closer to personalized health care products and services. The first half of the day was a mini-symposium highlighting some of the latest techniques and applications in biomedical simulation followed by an afternoon where participants would learn to take a series of 2D CT scans and reconstruct them into a 3D simulation of a biventricular beating heart. The symposium presenters represented local experts ranging from leading experts in biomechanical engineering and cardiothoracic surgery to senior research assistants. In total we had eleven presentations that were extremely well received by all that attended.

Mini-Symposium

The morning began with Dr. Ellen Kuhl from Stanford University providing and overview of the many innovative personalized simulations including bone density studies of contrasting a placekicker  with a lineman, shortening of muscles caused by wearing high heels, and personalized brain models including her own.  This was followed by a series of cutting edge research studies from local PhD and post-doctoral candidates. After a break, Dr. Hengchu Cao from Edwards Lifesciences highlighted the rigorous approach he uses to ensure simulations applied to development of new medical devices is well understood and validated through the example of the newly released Living Heart model.  Dr. Julius Guccione ushered us into lunch with his presentation on re-sculpting a human heart though injections of a hydrogel into the left ventricular wall which has been shown to prevent and reduce the progression of heart failure in patients. The final presentation was from Eric Aliotta, UCLA Graduate School Researcher, providing an overview of Diffusion Tensor MRI (DT-MRI) which was used to measure myocardial fiber orientations in the exact heart that would be used in the afternoon workshop. The full set of presentations were made available to participants for download. 

Building a Beating Heart

After lunch and little time to dissect a holographic heart simulation shown on the HP zVR display, the challenging workshop began with training on ScanIP image segmentation software from Simpleware. Tom Spirka systematically walked over 40 participants through the process of turning the scan data into a 3D volumetric mesh ready to be used in an FEA simulation. This was followed by the task of transforming their raw mesh into an accurate representation of the original heart.  The goal was for each to create a fully coupled electro-mechanical model and get the heart to beat using the powerful laptops provided by HP. This portion of the workshop was led by SIMULIA’s Brian Baillargeon. By the end of the day, several of the virtual hearts were indeed beating and dozens of other enthusiastic people, many of whom had little experience with simulation tools but were undaunted by the challenge, were amazed by how close they were able to come in just an afternoon. 

Unique Experience

While it was a challenging workshop, it was clear that the attendees appreciated performing the complete end-to-end process of building a model that in recent past would be beyond the scope of anyone but a world expert.  Each went home with a complete model of the beating heart, regardless of whether time permitted them to get their own heart beating in the time allotted.

This unique day proved to be very valuable for the organizers at SIMULIA and Simpleware but most importantly for all those who participated. The day showcased the rapid advancements that have been made in biomedical modeling and simulation techniques and the ability to collect and use individual scan data.  Based on the conversations at the end of the day, it seemed at least this group could see that evolution of technology is poised to revolutionize medical device development and the precision and practice of medicine as we know it. The contributions from the student attendees gave a glimpse into the applications that are on the horizon, while they in turn were able to grasp better the Industrial context which they soon enter to help drive this massive change.

Teaching an Old Dog

SIMULIA software has made an unmistakable impact in the automotive and aerospace industries. Now we see it’s time to make an equal commitment to have similar impact in the medical and life sciences industry; which is exactly what these students and leading researchers are doing to light the way for us. 

This workshop was an unprecedented measure of our maturity as an industry. We learned a lot and will no doubt take this learning into next Biomedical Modeling Workshop, which we might expand to give a full day of hands on following a state of the art symposium and possibly round table discussions with leading researchers, students, and industry experts.

Please reach out to the Living Heart Project team (SIMULIA.Living-heart-Project@3ds.com) to inquire about upcoming workshops.

Below are some pictures from the event. We look forward to hosting similar events globally.