St. David's supports Sacks' research with grant

[[The St. David’s Foundation Impact Fund gave a $121,200 grant to the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES) to create computer simulated heart valves that will help further heart valve disease research and treatments.

“Such models are used to both assess the current state of valve disease and, most importantly, suggest means to improve surgical techniques for repair and replacement of diseased valves, “ said Michael Sacks, the director of ICES’ Center for Cardiovascular Simulation.

The grant funds will directly support a two-year post-doctoral research fellowship at the center. Recruitment is currently underway.

Sacks and his research group’s current focus is creating computational simulations of the mitral valve, the passageway for blood from the left atrium to the left ventricle of the human heart. Read more.]]

The grant enables research to expand to modeling diseases of the mitral valve, including the weakening of the two leaflets and the supporting chords that form the mitral valve structure, and how heart attack impacts mitral valve function.

Heart Hospital of Austin’s extensive collection of cardiac images will help inform the valve simulations, said Sacks, and in the future pave the way for made-to-order-medicine.

“The availability of high-quality medical imaging data from a large patient database directly from the clinic makes the development of patient specific valve repair a practical reality,” said Sacks.

The work will be performed in collaboration with Dr. Chung-Hao Lee, a current ICES post-doctoral fellow at the center, to integrate the computational model data into a larger ongoing project on mitral valve tissue modeling, said Sacks.

This grant enables the development of advanced simulation tools that help inform clinicians on rational treatment options, and work to reduce current trail-an-error approaches, said Sacks, which all come back to providing better patient outcomes.

“Such simulations can ultimately lead to lowering of morbidity and morality, reduced re-operative rates and lessened recovery time,” said Sacks. “We are most grateful for the generosity of the St. David’s Foundation and look forward to working with them.”