Members of the Committee and Advisory Council
Contents
Executive Committee
Name & Role |
Biographical Sketch |
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Dr. Jerry Myers has worked in the area of medical computational modeling for over twenty years supporting topics ranging from the fluid mechanics of heart valve insufficiency, to coronary artery disease progression, to predictive models of injury modalities in space. Dr. Myers has managed budget, schedule and the technical aspects of several NASA fundamental physics and health science projects. He continues as the technical team lead for GRC’s efforts in probability risk assessment to quantify the risk related to physiological and medical effects of space travel. Dr. Myers also serves as a technical consultant and team member in computational biomedical engineering and physiology to the Human Research Program’s Digital Astronaut Project. As a strong advocate for the need to establish uniform approaches for validating models used in human health decision making, Dr. Myers currently leads many of the content and implementation activities for NASA’s efforts to standardize credibility assessment of the computational models used by NASA’s Human research program. Dr. Myers has published 1 book chapter, 21 peer reviewed publications, and 65 scholarly presentation or invited lectures. At this time, Dr. Myers serves as chief of the Bio Science and Technology Branch, the primary bio science topic area authority and the lead for external partnerships with the medical community at the NASA – John H. Glenn Research Center, in Cleveland Ohio. |
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Dr. Andrew Drach is an academic entrepreneur with focus on biomedical engineering, data-driven discoveries and decision making, full-stack software engineering and open-source software initiatives. Currently, Dr. Drach is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, while also heading an engineering consulting group which provides engineering and software development services to start-ups and SMBs. Previously, he held a position of Assistant Director of Center for Cardiovascular Simulation at the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, University of Texas at Austin (2014-2017). Dr. Drach has published 25 peer-reviews articles and presented at over 20 international conferences. He also serves as a peer-reviewer for 10 international journals and 13 international conferences. Andrew got his postdoctoral training in Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire. |
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Ahmet Erdemir, PhD, is the founding director of Computational Biomodeling (CoBi) Core at the Cleveland Clinic, which provides modeling and simulation capacity for simulation-based medicine. Dr. Erdemir also has an ongoing research program in multiscale biomechanics of the musculoskeletal system, from movements of the body to deformations of tissue and cells. |
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Marc Horner is currently working as lead healthcare specialist at ANSYS, Inc. Marc joined ANSYS after earning his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University in 2001. Marc began by providing support and professional services for biomedical clients, primarily in the areas of cardiovascular devices, drug delivery, packaging, electro-separation, microfluidics and orthopaedics. Marc now helps coordinate business and technology development for the healthcare sector in North America. This includes managing collaborative research projects between ANSYS and industry, academia, and the US FDA. |
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Joy Ku, PhD, is the Director of Simbios (http://simbios.stanford.edu), the NIH National Center for Physics-Based Simulations of Biological Structures, which is charged which helping to build a national biocomputational infrastructure to accelerate research in the field. She is a strong advocate of validation and reproducible research. She received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University for her work on in vivo and in vitro validations of finite-element-based simulations of blood flow through comparisons with MRI. And in her current role, she manages a Web-based project hosting site, called Simtk.org (http://simtk.org), that enables and encourages biocomputational researchers to share data, models, simulation results, and software tools. |
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William Lytton is an M.D. trained at Harvard, Columbia, Alabama, Johns Hopkins, UCSD and Salk Institute. He is a practicing neurologist caring for the indigent at Kings County Hospital and researching computational neuroscience at Downstate Medical Center, both in Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of From Computer to Brain, a basic introduction to computational neuroscience. His research is multiscale modeling at scales from molecule to brain to assist in understanding of brain diseases including epilepsy, stroke and schizophrenia, with a focus on using modeling for clinical translation from bench to bedside. |
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Rajanikanth Vadigepalli is a Professor of Pathology, Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Daniel Baugh Institute for Functional Genomics/Computational Biology in Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Vadigepalli’s collaborative research program is driven by a convergence of systems engineering, computational modeling, bioinformatics, and single cell scale transcriptomics, to identify and target key control points for intervention in disease. Ongoing collaborative projects focus on central and peripheral neural circuits controlling the heart, brainstem neuroinflammation and neuroimmune processes leading to hypertension, tissue repair and regeneration, and alcoholic liver disease. Recent research from the group has led to: new microRNA-based molecular targets to prevent essential hypertension; novel insights into the process of liver regeneration paving the way for new clinical decision-making tools; new analytical tools for mining high-dimensional data; and, novel methods for computational modeling of biological networks and processes. More details available at: http://www.jefferson.edu/university/research/researcher/researcher-faculty/vadigepalli-laboratory.html Dr. Vadigepalli received his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras in 1996; his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware in 2001, with Specialization in Systems and Control Engineering; and his postdoctoral training in Bioinformatics at Thomas Jefferson University. |
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Dr. Bruno Rego is an Assistant Professor of Biological & Agricultural Engineering at Louisiana State University. He was previously a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University, and holds BS and MSE/PhD degrees in Biomedical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin, respectively. His doctoral research, funded by both a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship, focused on the remodeling of heart valve tissues in response to myocardial infarction and pregnancy. Dr. Rego's recent work includes predictive modeling of vascular maturation, uncertainty quantification of inverse modeling-based estimates of arterial wall properties, and the development and validation of machine learning models to predict aortic dissection and aneurysm progression. Dr. Rego has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles and 4 book chapters, and his work has been presented at scientific conferences over 50 times. His research has been highlighted on journal covers 4 times and has also been featured by various popular media outlets. |
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Dr. Amir Khalighi holds BS and MSE/PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Sharif University of Technology in Iran and the University of Texas at Austin, respectively, and is currently working with industrial R&D laboratories as an advisor at a scientific consultancy in Austin, Texas. During his doctoral research, Dr. Khalighi developed computational pipelines to build image-based models of the mitral heart valve for surgical repair simulations. Dr. Khalighi's current work is focused on bringing digital expertise to several R&D laboratories in the chemical- and life-sciences industries. Over the course of his academic and professional career, Dr. Khalighi has authored more than 15 peer-reviewed publications and has been serving as a reviewer for more than 10 scientific meetings and journals. |
Advisory Council
Name & Role |
Biographical Sketch |
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Dr. Gary An is an Associate Professor of Surgery and the co-Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at the University of Chicago. In addition to being an active clinician he is a Senior Fellow of the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago. He is a graduate of the University of Miami, Florida School of Medicine, and did his surgical residency at Cook County Hospital/University of Illinois, Chicago. He was previously a Trauma Surgeon at Cook County Hospital from 1997 to 2003, the Director of the Burn Intensive Care Unit at Cook County Hospital from 2003-2006 and a Trauma Surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL 2006 to 2010. He is a founding member of the Society of Complexity in Acute Illness (SCAI) and is the current president of the Swarm Development Group, one of the original organizations promoting the use of agent-based modeling for scientific investigation. He is the founder and director of the Fellowship in Translational Systems Biology at the University of Chicago. He is member of multiple medical and computer science societies, and serves on the editorial board of several journals. |
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Dr. Jeffrey Bischoff received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2001 with a specialization in soft tissue biomechanics. He subsequently held a post-doctoral position at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina in Mechanical Engineering, where he developed an experimental and computational laboratory focusing on characterization of cardiovascular and orthopaedic biomaterials, funded through federal research grants. Since 2006, he has been at Zimmer, Inc., in various engineering and management roles. During this time he has supported product development efforts in a variety of segments using computational analysis, optimization, and other analytical tools. |
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David M. Eckmann, Ph.D., M.D., is the Horatio C. Wood Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care and Professor of Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Penn Institute for Medicine and Engineering, the Cardiovascular Institute, and a Founding Member of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics. Dr. Eckmann is American Board of Anesthesiology certified and is an attending anesthesiologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania as well as a fellowship-trained biofluid mechanics theoretician and experimentalist with expertise in cardiopulmonary physiology and interfacial biofluid dynamics. His basic science research interests include cellular mechanotransduction, physiology, pharmacology, intravital microscopy, experimental and computational fluid mechanics, thin films and nanoparticles, and mathematical modeling related to blood and interfacial fluid dynamics, cellular mechanics, targeted drug delivery, and nano-scale biomaterial surface coatings for biocompatibility and infection resistance. Dr. Eckmann has a 20+ year history of continuous research funding including grants from NIH, NSF, NASA, Office of Naval Research, private foundations and industry. |
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I develop and use advanced modeling and simulation methods to achieve deeper, actionable insight into the multilevel mechanisms responsible for biomedical phenomena, from cells in experimental systems to tissues and organs to populations of individuals, in the presence and absence of interventions. An additional goal is to develop, challenge, and validate concrete, actionable theories of mechanistic translation among research, clinical, and drug development contexts. My current focus includes morphogenesis; the coupled influences of inter-, intracellular, and zonal tissue heterogeneity on transport, metabolism, and response to therapeutic (and potentially therapeutic) molecules in normal and diseased livers; and simulating in vitro to in vivo translation. I am a member of the Editorial Boards of Simulation, Transactions of the SCS, the International Journal of Knowledge Discovery in Bioinformatics, Computers in Biology and Medicine, and the Journal of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Research. I am an AAAS and AAPS Fellow and a Director of The McLeod Modeling and Simulation Network. Since 2000, I have served on three Scientific Advisory Boards. Prior to that I was Director of UCSF’s, Biotechnology Training Program. My computational biology track record, since transitioning from wet-lab to primarily computational research demonstrates consistent progress in advancing the frontier of scientific, biomedical modeling and simulation. My modeling and simulation skills and knowledge were primarily acquired “on the job” and through over two-dozen workshops along with seven UCB and Stanford CS and AI graduate courses. I began the transition from wet-lab to computational research more than fifteen years ago, motivated by a desire to better understand individual variability in response to therapeutic interventions. My wet-lab and biotechnology background has contributed to development of a somewhat unique approach to multiscale modeling and simulation. Earlier, I had a successful track record inventing and developing novel therapeutics, targeted delivery, and siRNA methods. Five of 11 US patents resulting from that work earn UC income; three earn UC net income. |
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Donna R. Lochner is Associate Director at the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories. She manages research programs and initiatives aimed at advancing the application of computational modeling and simulation for FDA’s premarket regulatory review, and promoting FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health’s regulatory science research. Prior to her current position, she was Deputy Director of the FDA's Division of Cardiovascular Devices where her primary responsibilities included the review and approval of cardiovascular medical devices distributed or clinically investigated in the U.S. She has also served as the Chief of FDA's Intraocular and Corneal Implants Branch. Prior to joining the FDA, Ms. Lochner worked in regulatory affairs and engineering for Cordis Corporation. She has a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. |
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My primary research interest for 40 years has been the credible modeling of dynamic nonlinear physiological systems. Starting in 1978 with the publication of the seminal monograph on White-Noise Analysis of Physiological Systems (co-authored with my brother Panos and translated in Russian in 1981 and Chinese in 1990), I have compiled a long record of contributions to this subject. My recent monograph (2004) on the same subject presented comprehensively our progress over 30 years (1974-2004) and laid the foundation for subsequent innovative advancements, which we proudly present in this application. Most of this work has been supported by successive P41 awards to the Biomedical Simulations Resource (BMSR) at USC since 1985. The results of this long-record of cutting-edge, innovative research have influenced and inspired numerous investigators who have adopted some of the developed methodologies and, perhaps more importantly, some of the intellectual/scientific viewpoints advanced by our work. This record of success and innovation continues during the current funding cycle of the BMSR, directed towards the "capstone objective" of demonstrating the utility of the developed modeling methodologies for the advancement of medical science and clinical practice. The basic tenet of my work is that biomedical system modeling has critical importance both for scientific advancement and clinical innovation. Our modeling goals are pursued by analyzing sets of time-series data/measurements, typically collected under natural operating conditions, in a dynamic and nonlinear context. The obtained "nonparametric" data-based models are used to advance our scientific understanding of the subject system or to guide the collection of new types of time-series data that allow the development and testing of mechanism-based models. The latter ought to be amenable to meaningful interpretation in order to advance the state of the art and, most importantly, to enable innovative approaches to clinical diagnosis and treatment. It is the latter objective that currently drives much of our agenda, since our results to date on clinical applications corroborate the potential utility of our approach and portend a future of scientific discovery and valuable clinical impact. |
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Alison Marsden is an associate professor and Wall Center scholar in the departments of Pediatrics, Bioengineering, and, by courtesy, Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. From 2007-2015 she was a faculty member in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of California San Diego. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University in 1998, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford in 2005 working with Prof. Parviz Moin. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in Bioengineering and Pediatric Cardiology from 2005-07 working with Charles Taylor and Jeffrey Feinstein. She was the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface in 2007, an NSF CAREER award in 2011, and is a member of an international Leducq Foundation Network of Excellence. She received the UCSD graduate student association faculty mentor award in 2014 and MAE department teaching award at UCSD in 2015. She has published over 70 peer reviewed journal papers, and has received funding from the NSF, NIH, and several private foundations. Her work focuses on the development of numerical methods for cardiovascular blood flow simulation, medical device design, application of optimization to large-scale fluid mechanics simulations, and application of engineering tools to impact patient care in cardiovascular surgery and congenital heart disease. |
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Lealem Mulugeta is currently Chief Scientist and Executive Director of InSilico Labs LLC. Prior to his venture with InSilico Labs, Lealem worked at NASA as the Project/Lead Scientist of NASA's Digital Astronaut Project (DAP). The DAP is dedicated to implementing well-validated computational models to help predict and assess spaceflight health and performance risks, and to enhance the development of health risk countermeasure. Since joining DAP, Lealem has played a strong role in the development and implementation of standardized methods for verification, validation and credibility assessment of NASA’s biomedical computational models. In doing so, he works very closely with highly multidisciplinary teams of researchers and engineers to develop and implement computational models for space biomedical research. |
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I am a jointly a researcher at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Computational Biology Group, Oxford University, and am currently based at the FDA just outside of Washington DC.I work in the modelling of biological function, generally at the cellular or organ levels. My main research interests are the simulation ofcardiac electro-physiological activity, cardiac mechanical activity, and soft-tissue mechanics in general, especially in terms ofnumerical methods, mathematical modelling, and verification & validation.I am heavily involved with the Chaste (Cancer, Heart and Soft Tissue Environment) project, in which we have developed a powerful, efficient, general and reliable tool for solving computationally-demanding problems in biological modelling. Further information can be found at: https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/pras.pathmanathan/. |
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Grace C.Y. Peng received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana, the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University. She performed postdoctoral and faculty research in the department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University. In 2000 she became the Clare Boothe Luce professor of biomedical engineering at the Catholic University of America. Since 2002, Dr. Peng has been a Program Director in the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), at the National Institutes of Health. Her program areas at the NIBIB include mathematical modeling, simulation and analysis methods, and next generation engineering systems for rehabilitation, neuroengineering, and surgical systems. In 2003, she brought together the Neuroprosthesis Group (NPG) of program officers across multiple institutes of the NIH. Also in 2003, Dr. Peng lead the creation of the Interagency Modeling and Analysis Group (IMAG), which now consists of program officers from ten federal agencies of the U.S. government and Canada (www.imagwiki.org/mediawiki). IMAG has continuously supported funding specifically for multiscale modeling (of biological systems) since 2004. IMAG facilitates the activities of the Multiscale Modeling (MSM) Consortium of investigators (started in 2006). Dr. Peng is interested in promoting the development of intelligent tools and reusable models, and integrating these approaches in engineering systems and multiscale physiological problems. |
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Dr. Gaurav “Gary” N. Pradhan is the Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Mayo College of Medicine and Senior Research Scientist at the Aerospace Medicine and Vestibular Research Laboratory (AMVRL) at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. He has earned his PhD in Computer Science at University of Texas at Dallas in 2008. His main research interests focus on data mining, pattern recognition, knowledge discovery, machine learning, cluster analysis, association rule mining and content-based similarity retrieval in the context of high-dimensional, multi-sensor, and multi-stream databases. Dr. Pradhan is specifically interested in developing real-time computational and mathematical models and simulations in medicine, conducting health care data analytics and mining, and creating data visualizations in biomedical informatics. His current research involves development of novel, real-time, eye-tracking technology as a biomarker of cognitive impairment. He is also actively working on the development of real-time computational models to generate multi-axial galvanic vestibular stimulation commands matching motions in the visual scene particularly in the areas of flight simulations, medical applications and entertainment. |
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Martin Steele is a simulation analyst in the Computational Science Branch of the Information Technology Directorate at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), FL. He has over 30 years of NASA and military experience in space and ground systems engineering and operations, primarily at the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. He currently holds the office of primary responsibility for the NASA Standard for Models and Simulations, leads an Agency-wide team in developing implementation guidelines for models and simulations, coordinates and integrates process modeling analysis using discrete event simulation, and develops methods for integrating discrete event simulation into gaming and visualization environments. His degrees include a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering, a M.S. in Simulation Modeling Analysis, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering (with a Computer Science option). |
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Marlei Ebert Walton, Ph.D., M.S.E., is the Project Scientist for the Integrated Medical Model (IMM) project with the Wyle Science, Technology and Engineering Group at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). Dr. Walton received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSMC) in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology program in 1998. She earned her M.S.E. in Aerospace and Biomechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 1990 after completing requirements for a double major B.S.E. in biomedical and electrical engineering from Duke University in 1988. After graduating from UTSMC, Dr. Walton continued her work focusing on skeletal muscle metabolism as an Associate Investigator within the Veteran’s Administration North Texas Health Care System before she started her own business as a Research Science Consultant. Dr. Walton has been with Wyle since 2004, initially as the Muscle and Exercise Discipline Coordinating Scientist for NASA JSC. She has served as the Project Scientist for the IMM since 2007. As well as serving as the scientific subject matter expert, Dr. Walton has developed, refined, and executed verification, validation, and credibility plans and processes for the IMM project. The IMM project has garnered recognition and been awarded several team awards including the NASA JSC Exceptional Software Award, Bioastronautics Bravo Award, and NASA Top Coder Award. During Dr. Walton’s tenure at Wyle, she has also been honored with personal achievement awards including the NASA Special Professional Achievement Award, NASA Special Scientific Achievement Award, and NASA Special Flight Achievement Award. |
Past Members
Name & Role |
Biographical Sketch |
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Jacob Barhak is currently a Freelancer specializing in chronic disease modeling with emphasis on using Computational Technological solutions. The Reference Model for disease progression was self developed by Dr. Barhak as a freelancer. Previously Dr. Barhak headed the Michigan Model for Diabetes computing team 2006-2012. A major part of this position involved developing the software environment and the Michigan Model for Diabetes. Dr. Barhak has diverse international background in engineering and computing science. For additional information please visit: http://sites.google.com/site/jacobbarhak/ |
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I am an Applied Mathematician and a Computer Scientist trained in France. My PhD in 1984 on the asymptotic analysis of multiscale problems with boundary layers and transition layers contributed to the matching asymptotic theory of W.Eckhaus (Neederland). Later I worked on stability and bifurcation theory for moving front problems in fluid dynamic and combustion with Hans Kaper (ANL) and Bernie Matkowsky (Northwestern). My works evolved into the development of parallel algorithm to solve complex physical problems that cannot be addressed by analytical methods. This work has produced new algorithms: Aitken-Shwarz, C(p,q,j) scheme, and multiblock filtering techniques for parabolic problems. I have worked also extensively with Wei Shyy on several applications of fluid mechanics and a posteriori error estimates. Since 2008, my interest has shifted to computational medicine and more precisely surgery. My philosophy in science is to start from the real application with interdisciplinary collaborations led by the final application. The mathematic, computer science and algorithmic development must follow and adapt to the needs of the application problem. The foundation of the COmputational Surgery International NEtwork (Cosine –http://www.computationalsurgery.org) in partnership with Dr. Barbara Bass, chair of the department of surgery at the Methodist Hospital follows this strategy. One of our projects is to predict surgery outcome and cosmetic defect after a lumpectomy. We use mathematics and algorithms to identify targets for Breast Conservative Therapy (BCT) improvement. Our preliminary work includes soft tissue mechanics, image analysis for segmentation and classification of tissue, 3-D reconstruction, and inverse problems to recover unloaded position of the breast, healing models either based on level set technique with macroscopic laws, or agent base model of tissue growth using a bottom up approach. The approach has many concepts in common with the multiscale network modeling of hemodynamic-driven vascular adaptation led by Scott Berceli, Professor of Surgery at University of Florida, for which I am a co-investigator. However, BCT understanding is at an earlier stage. We have started, with Barbara Bass, a small pilot study involving 16 patients. We should then revisit our hypothesis accordingly and progress in our understanding of the recovery process after surgery. I have about 160 peer review publications and was the editor of 6 books. I am co-editor in chief with Barbara Bass of a new journal in computational surgery published by Springer Verlag. |
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Ronald N. Germain received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, the latter for research with B. Benacerraf, recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Since that time, he has investigated basic T-cell immunobiology, first on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and, since 1982, as the Chief, Lymphocyte Biology Section in the Laboratory of Immunology and now as Chief of the new Laboratory of Systems Biology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Over the years, he and his colleagues have made key contributions to our understanding of Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) class II molecule structure–function relationships, the cell biology of antigen processing, and the molecular basis of T cell recognition. More recently, his laboratory has been focused on the relationship between immune tissue organization and dynamic control of adaptive immunity at both the initiation and effector stages. Experiments at the whole cell, tissue, and organism level are being used to build a more complete picture of the operation of the immune system, including those utilizing novel dynamic in situ microscopic live animal imaging methods that his laboratory helped pioneer. Efforts are also underway to create computer models of immune system function based on these studies. Dr. Germain has published more than 300 scholarly research papers and reviews. Among numerous honors, he was elected as an Associate (foreign) member of EMBO (2008), awarded the Landsteiner Medal of the Austrian Society for Allerology and Immunology (2008), elected honorary member of the Scandinavian Society for Immunology, selected as a Distinguished Lecturer, American Association of Immunologists, 2006, designated an NIH Distinguished Investigator, and selected to deliver numerous named lectureships at major academic institutions in the US and abroad. He serves as an associate or advisory editor of the J Exp Med, Immunity, Current Biology, Mol Systems Biol, Int Immunol, BMC Biology, and Nature Scientific Reports, and has previously served as Deputy Editor of J Immunol and Editor, Immunity. He sits on several academic scientific advisory boards, helped co-found the Immunology Interest Group and Systems Biology Interest Group at NIH, and acts as Associate Director for the trans-NIH Center for Human Immunology. |
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Professor Wing Kam Liu has made fundamental, innovative contributions to the theories and methodologies of multiscale simulation-based engineering and science through application of a spectrum of atomistic, quantum, and continuum building block strategies. His research has benefitted the design of nano-materials and engineering material systems, and the use of organic and inorganic materials for drug delivery applications. He has developed new finite element and meshfree methods that are used globally via implementation in both commercial and laboratory codes. He is the PI of a multi-year, multi-million dollar collaborative research grant from Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company to develop and integrate design strategies to enable prediction and synthesis of new polymer nano-composites to achieve enhanced performance. He has designed steels of unprecedented strength and toughness. He is the first to explore the interplay between phononic bandgaps and piezoelectric microstructures for energy harvesting. He has designed and fabricated mechanically flexible and optically transparent piezoelectric metamaterials for vibration energy harvesting and integrated sensors. |
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Born and raised in Oklahoma City, Dr. James D. Thomas attended Harvard College (graduating summa cum laude in Applied Mathematics) and Harvard Medical School before clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Vermont. He is now the Charles and Lorraine Moore Chair in Cardiovascular Imaging at the Cleveland Clinic and Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University and serves as lead scientist for ultrasound with NASA. Clinical interests include valvular heart disease and diastolic dysfunction with research interests in cardiac mechanics, application of new echo technology, and space physiology. Dr. Thomas has over 500 peer reviewed publications and is Immediate Past-President of the American Society of Echocardiography. He currently chairs the ASE effort in an international committee to standardize the measurement of myocardial strain by echocardiography and has previously served on the Cardiovascular Board of ABIM and as co-chairman for the 2007 ACC Annual Scientific Sessions. When not reading echoes, Dr. Thomas enjoys cooking, skiing, scuba diving, and the occasional bungee jump. |
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Dr. Tina Morrison is a mechanical engineer who studied Cardiovascular Biomechanics for two years as a post doctoral fellow at Stanford University. Her research focused on quantifying the in vivo deformations of the thoracic aorta from CT imaging. She continues her research efforts at the Food and Drug Administration at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) in the Office of Device Evaluation (ODE). Currently she is the Chief Advisor of Computational Modeling for the ODE and is leading the Regulatory Review of Computational Modeling working group at CDRH. She is energetic about advancing regulatory science through modeling and simulation because she believes the future of medical device design and evaluation, and thus enhanced patient care, lies with computation and enhanced visualization. |
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Lu Tian, Bachelor degree in Mathematics from Nankai University (1995); Master degree in Applied Mathematics from Nankai University (1998); Doctor of Science degree in Biostatistics from Harvard University (2002). His graduate study was supported by Howard Hughes Fellowship. He was awarded the Robert B. Reed Award for Excellence in Biostatistics at Harvard University. He had been working at the Department of preventive medicine, Northwestern University (2004-2008) as Assistant Professor. He is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University. He has rich experience in conducting statistical methodological research, planning large epidemiological studies, running data management for randomized clinical trials and conducting applied data analysis. His current research interest is in developing statistical methods in semiparametric regression modeling, survival analysis and high throughput data analysis. |
