Science AMA Series: I’m Natalia Trayanova, a professor of biomedical
engineering and medicine at Johns Hopkins University. I create virtual
hearts to diagnose and treat patients with heart rhythm disorders. AMA!
Abstract
Hi Reddit, my name is Natalia Trayanova, and I’m a professor of
biomedical engineering and medicine at Johns Hopkins University. My lab
uses predictive computer simulations to generate personalized virtual
hearts of patients that have life-threatening arrhythmias. These
first-of-their-kind virtual hearts are already being used in the clinic
to assess patient risk of sudden cardiac death and to guide personalized
anti-arrhythmia interventions. Simulation-driven engineering has put
rockets in space, and airplanes in the sky. We trust engineering
advances with our lives, however, when it comes to our own health,
things are quite different. Computer simulations are rarely used in
medicine. Our vision is to change this – we aim to bring computer
simulations to the clinic, to make precise decisions for treatments for
heart disease. We believe implementing an engineering data-driven
simulation approach will increase the efficacy of diagnostic and
clinical procedures for heart rhythm disorders and democratize the
delivery of cardiac healthcare. You can learn more about our virtual
heart approach in a recent TEDx talk
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSDMPxGGy3A], and in this video
describing our pioneering approach [https://youtu.be/bX62KNOfdBs].
We hope our virtual hearts will become a routine tool in the clinic,
improving patient outcomes, which would be an unprecedented merging of
computational simulation and clinical medicine. It has been
extraordinarily fulfilling to have transcended my role as scientist and
engineer, to be working directly with physicians helping patients. This
is an unexpected and an exhilarating place to be. I look forward to
having you #AskMeAnything on April 2nd, 1 PM ET.