The Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering hosts its 10th annual Surgery, Intervention and Engineering Symposium Wednesday, Dec. 15, at 4 p.m. CT. The event will feature a keynote lecture by Natalia Trayanova, Murray B. Sachs Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine at Johns Hopkins University.
The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
Trayanova will speak about her work in developing personalized imaging-based heart “digital twins” that digitally replicate the electrical functions of a patient’s heart. The heart digital twins, models based on heart scans and clinical data, are used to simulate an individual patient’s irregular heart rhythm—a major cause of patient morbidity and mortality. The tool assesses patients’ risk of sudden cardiac death so a precise decision can be made when weighing the benefits and potential complications of implanting a defibrillator device.
Trayanova directs the Alliance for Cardiovascular Diagnostic and Treatment Innovation, a research institute aimed at applying predictive data-driven approaches, computational modeling, and innovations in cardiac imaging to the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease. She also directs the Computational Cardiology Laboratory.
The tenth annual symposium marks a major milestone for VISE, which creates an environment in which engineering teams and practitioners interact and exchange ideas and in which traditional boundaries are eliminated.
Symposium participants also will have the opportunity to attend general poster viewing and virtual panel discussions in the new Virtual VISE, a virtual replica of the brick-and-mortar institute on Vanderbilt’s campus. There will be more than 70 poster sessions on topics ranging from cochlear implant modeling and programming, image-guided surgery, robotic-assisted surgery, brain imaging and Alzheimer’s disease, retinal procedures, transcranial ultrasound therapy, breast tumor registration, and drug delivery, among others.
“It has been thrilling to see the growth over the years, with the doubling of the number of presentations since that first year,” said Harvie Branscomb Professor Michael I. Miga, VISE co-founder and professor of biomedical engineering.
“It is more than just visibility, too. VISE’s annual symposium is primarily an intramural community-building event. Doubling the participation has only been possible by Vanderbilt’s commitment and support of the surgery, intervention, and engineering domain,” Miga said. “I can’t wait to see what another 10 years will bring!”