Cardiologist Kent Beasley Brings Computational Science to the Clinic

When ICES' computational medicine research meets clinical applications, cardiologist Dr. Kent Beasley is there with the bedside manner uniquely provided by a physician with more than 40 years of clinical practice.

For the past decade, Beasley, now a clinical professor at the ICES Center for Cardiovascular Simulation led by Michael Sacks, has been teaching a course on clinical cardiology (CSE 397). Since the class’s inception, it has promoted computational medicine because Beasley believes it represents the next evolution in cardiac care.

Beasley’s class is conducted as a lecture series, using visiting cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, and cardiac researchers from the Seton Heart Institute, Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeons, Austin Heart and ICES. In addition, each student participates in a preceptorship at the Heart Hospital of Austin, where he or she observes clinical procedures, from surgery to electrophysiology studies.

“The difference between a lecture and really seeing it done is immeasurable. It adds a lot of meaning. It gives them a much better understanding of whatever research they’re working on,” said Beasley, who practiced at Seton, the Heart Hospital of Austin, and St. David’s Hospital during his 48-year clinical career. At Seton he served as the hospital’s chief of medicine from 1977 to 1979, and the medical director of the cardiopulmonary department from 1972-1981. He retired from practice in 2015. Travis Sanders, a CSEM student who took Beasley’s class in fall 2015, said that his time with clinicians at the Heart Hospital gave new insight into his research on modeling coronary artery vulnerable plaques that he is conducting under the guidance of Thomas Hughes, director of the ICES Computational Mechanics Group.

“I spent a morning in the CT imaging room where I saw how prevalent calcified plaques were in older patients,” Sanders said. “This visit was especially important to me because CT imaging is how we acquire data for our research, so it was particularly useful to see how the images were captured.”

Sanders said that watching two open-heart operations at the hospital—with each step of the surgery being explained by the medical team—were experiences that drew him deeper into computational medical research.

“For me, the hospital visits, which Dr. Beasley worked tirelessly to set up and maintain over the last decade, were life changing in terms of my research career,” Sanders said. “Ever since my first visit, I've been hooked.”

In lecture and at the hospital, Beasley’s students learn about the technology that surgeons and cardiologists use to diagnose and treat patients, such as pacemakers, defibrillator placements, and imaging techniques like coronary artery calcium scoring and CT angiograms.

“We try to aim the class toward engineering aspects,” Beasley said. “Left ventricular assist device pumps, coronary artery bypass procedures, Da Vinci surgery, the latest information.”

Many cardiac functions can be thought of as engineering problems, Beasley said, from how fluid flows through the heart, to the electrical pulses that jolt through the muscle to keep it beating. The goal of the class is to teach students how technology is already being used to treat heart issues, and to offer a deeper understanding of cardiology and its complexities to help guide research.

Beasley says that he thinks the next revolution in cardiac care will be in computational medicine—from the development of lifelike models that enable physicians to test treatment plans, to less invasive ways of diagnosing disease.

“Models can help take the risk to the patient out of [diagnosis], and take the cost out of it and the length of time out of it. I see a great future in it. And I see ICES poised to contribute a lot in that area,” Beasley said.

ICES Director Tinsley Oden has been promoting collaboration and exchange between the institute and medical centers for over a decade. Along with his own research on treating brain tumors conducted with partners at MD Anderson Cancer Center, he, along with Hughes and Sacks, has been the driving force behind symposiums meant to acquaint medical professionals with the potential of computational medicine, Beasley said.

It was at a symposium 11 years ago organized by Oden and Hughes where Beasley first learned about computational medicine. Now, he says real clinical inroads are starting to take hold.

For example, Heartflow, a company founded by Hughes’ former Ph.D. student Charles Taylor, is leading the way in applying computational modeling to cardiac care. The company developed a technique that uses data from CT scans of a patient’s heart to create a computational model that’s used to non-invasively detect coronary artery disease.

Sanders will be conducting research with the Heartflow team during an externship with the company this summer. Back at the institute, researchers in the Center for Cardiac Simulation are developing other computational medicine techniques.

Joao Soares, an ICES Research Associate at the Center for Cardiac Simulation and lecturer at Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, says that Beasley’s knowledge and professional connections built over decades of practicing medicine have benefitted the CCS cardiovascular research, not only by providing valuable clinical feedback but also by bringing local players together to develop more and better research projects.

“He’s the expertise next door,” Soares said, emphasizing how Beasley’s involvement in the center has helped in establishing collaborations with local surgeons and radiologists to gather imaging data needed to build models, and has brought computational scientists into the Heart Hospital and medical doctors to ICES seminars.

“I’ve never learned so much in such a short period of time, the environment makes learning happen in a very appealing way,” said Soares on observing surgery.

Beasley says he sees his role as a clinical professor at UT and at the Institute as a conduit for helping computational scientists learn from medical professionals. Once the Dell Medical School opens its doors, he thinks it would be valuable for medical students to learn about computational medicine in a similar way.

“The different clinical applications are there but it’s going to take a lot of education and a lot of work to bring in the clinician,” Beasley said. “It would be a good idea to bring in basic computational courses to the medical school, or eventually have a rotation [at the Institute] for students, or maybe having a Master’s degree in Science in computational medicine. I can see all of that happening here.”

Beasley also credits Ph.D. Candidate Fred Nugen who served as promoter and teaching assistant for the class during its early years, and throughout his Ph.D. work in mechanical engineering.

Opening in summer 2016, The University of Texas at Austin’s Dell Medical School plans to innovate “around the needs and opportunities of 21st-century medicine.” The school will find good company with the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, a research hub where computational medicine research meets clinical applications.