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New Research on How Different Fibrotic Patterns Alter Cardiac Tissue Mechanics

We are excited to announce a new CardSS Lab paper, entitled “Mechanical Modeling of Cardiac Fibrosis with Explicit Spatial Representation of Cellular Structure and Collagen Alignment” by Dr. Åshild Telle, Pat, and other collaborators. The study reveals that replacement fibrosis greatly amplifies the level of stress on remaining cells and softens directional stiffness. Interstitial fibrosis, on the other hand, primarily stiffens the tissue stretch without altering anisotropy. The publisher has posted a direct link to a publicly-available PDF version of the…

New Breakthrough in Predictive Modeling for Post‑Ablation Atrial Fibrillation

Congratulations to co-first authors Dr. Savannah Bifluco and Matthew Magoon, as well as Pat and co-senior author Dr. Nazem Akoum, on their new paper “Predicting arrhythmia recurrence post-ablation in atrial fibrillation using explainable machine learning”. Aiming to address clinical-ready technologies, this algorithm blends EHR and LGE-derived data to explain arrhythmia recurrence risk in ablation-treated patients via SHAP analysis. We are particularly proud to publish two major datasets alongside this paper, one containing 164 finite element meshes reconstructed from MRI scans…

New Article About Optogenetic Suppression in Cardiac Stem Cell Therapy

Kudos to CardSS Lab alumni Jamie S. Yang and Dr. Alexander R. Ochs, along with current members Dr. Chelsea E. Gibbs & Pat, who were the driving force behind the newly published article entitled “Computational Simulations Show Proof-of-Concept for Optogenetic Suppression of Ectopic Activity in Cardiac Stem Cell Therapy”. By investigating the efficacy of optogenetic modification, their simulations suggested WiChR-based optogenetic suppression of hPSC-CM graft-associated arrhythmia is feasible but must be carefully calibrated. More information can be found at Cardiovascular…

Recent Insights into Stem‑Cell‑Derived Cardiomyocyte Grafts and Arrhythmogenesis

CardSS Lab members Dr. Chelsea E. Gibbs and Pat recently published the study entitled “Population-based computational simulations elucidate mechanisms of focal arrhythmia following stem cell injection”. Key highlights of the paper include that individual stem-cell derived cardiomyocyte grafts can be arrhythmogenic and tend to be in areas with high host isolation. The full manuscript is available at The Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology and ScienceDirect.

Recent Research in Tissue Mechanics and Multiphysics Simulation

Congratulations to Dr. Åshild Telle and Pat, along with our many collaborators at UW (Cardiology and Mechanical Engineering) and the Medical University of Graz, for their recently published research article entitled “Multiphysics simulations reveal haemodynamic impacts of patient-derived fibrosis-related changes in left atrial tissue mechanics”. This research presents the first electro-mechano-fluidic multiphysics computational simulations of left atrial flow, including fibrosis and anatomies from medical imaging, using LGE-MRI. The paper can be found at The Journal of Physiology and via PubMed.