Virtual human heart, uterus and spinal cord
Prof Arun Holden & Dr Michael Ries
Leeds University
2006 – 2009 Postdoctoral Fellowship
Diffusion tensor imaging in the construction of human virtual tissues: heart, gravid uterus and spinal cord.
Prof Arun Holden is Professor of Computational Biology at the Institute of Membrane and Systems Biology at Leeds University.
Dr Michael Ries is a Lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Polymer Science and Technology at Leeds University.
Virtual tissue engineering aims to construct physiologically and anatomically detailed computational models of human tissues and their responses to drugs. These can be used in the drug design and development process to identify targets and pre-screen candidates.
More than half a million animals are used in British pharmaceutical research and testing although animal tests are unreliable in predicting the safety and efficacy of new drugs. Computer modelling holds enormous potential to replace animal experiments in medical research and testing.
The Leeds group has constructed virtual cardiac and uterine cells and tissues. The engineering of computational models of human tissues requires detailed, high-resolution datasets of tissue geometry and architecture. This Dr Hadwen Trust-funded research project will use experimental, high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to obtain digital description of tissue geometry, and Diffusion Tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTMRI) to obtain details of tissue structure, of the normal and hypertrophic heart; segments of spinal cord; and from normal and gravid uterus.
Data will be used to construct computer models of electro-mechanical activity in the heart and uterus, and to evaluate the possible use of DTMRI in tracking fibre pathways, as a possible non-invasive index of spinal cord damage and of regeneration. Such virtual tissues would be useful to pre-screen candidate anti-arrhythmics on the heart; evaluate mechanisms of preterm and full-term labour, and possibly evaluate spinal cord pathway regeneration produced by novel therapies.
The models will be distributed through BioSim, an EU-sponsored Network of Excellence on biosimulation to improve drug development and provide alternatives to animal testing.
www.biosim-network.net
Publications
Benson AP, Gilbert SH, Ries ME et al (2007). The role of ventricular myocardial geometry in arrhythmogenesis. Physica D, submitted
Benson AP, Ries ME & Holden AV (2007). Effects of geometry and architecture on re-entrant scroll wave dynamics in human virtual ventricular tissues. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4466:200-209
Gilbert SH, Benson AP, Li P et al (2007). Regional localisation of left ventricular sheet structure: integration with current models of cardiac fibre, sheet and band structure. European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery 32:231-249
Holden AV, Benson AP & Halley G (2007). Cardiac arrhythmias: dynamics and geometry. Proceedings in Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, submitted