The PhD defence will be in Abels utsikt - Niels Henrik Abels hus. The host of the session will moderate the technicalities while the chair of the defence will moderate the disputation.
Ex auditorio questions: the chair of the defence will invite the audience to ask questions ex auditorio at the end of the defence.
Trial lecture
September 12th, time: 10:15 am, room 1259 (Abels utsikt).
Defying gravity: modelling cardiovascular alterations in the International Space Station
Main research findings
Stroke remains a leading cause of death worldwide, and atrial fibrillation (AF) is responsible for roughly one-third of these events. Patients with AF experience irregular and rapid heartbeats, which increases the risk of blood clot (thrombus) formation and possibly stroke. The decision to manage AF using medication is often determined by clinical risk scores, but these do not account for the individual patient's heart shape and blood flow.
This research developed a computational framework to address this problem. First, an advanced fluid dynamics solver was developed and verified to accurately simulate blood flow in moving heart chambers. Then, new methods were developed to model heart wall motion and blood flow rates based on each patient's anatomy.
Finally, this framework was applied to 40 patients, revealing that blood stagnation time and specific heart chamber structures are key factors that current clinical risk scores ignore. Combining these blood flow calculations with heart shape measurements showed an improvement in identifying patients with thrombus or a history of stroke compared to current methods. Therefore, this thesis shows that computer flow models of the heart can help identify AF patients prone to thrombus formation, and paves the way for personalized stroke prevention.
Adjudication committee
-
Professor Oscar Flores, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
- Research Fellow Giorgia Maria Bosi, UCL Cardiovascular Engineering Laboratory
- Professor Atle Jensen, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Professor Mikael Mortensen, University of Oslo
- Chief Research Scientist Joakim Sundnes, Simula Research Laboratory
- Chief Research Scientist Kristian Valen-Sendstad, Simula Research Laboratory
Chair of defence
Professor Geir Dahl
Host of the session
Professor Atle Jensen, University of Oslo