The new NSF award supports the study of arrhythmias in diseased hearts

The new NSF award supports the study of arrhythmias in diseased hearts

Cardiovascular disease affects nearly half of adults in the United States and represents a significant public health challenge. To improve the diagnosis and treatment of such a cardiac condition, Rui Zhu, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, has created a National Science Foundation Faculty Program Get Discover the mechanisms behind cardiac arrhythmias.

A healthy human heart beats in a regular rhythm, but cardiac arrhythmias disrupt this pattern due to faulty electrical impulses in the heart's muscle tissue. Zhu's research focuses on modeling complex systems and plans to apply this expertise to the challenge of modeling diseased hearts.

Multiphysics simulations can give us a more realistic way to understand how arrhythmias work. But these simulations were built primarily for healthy hearts. This is because in reality, diseased hearts can vary greatly in anatomy, pathology, etc., making it difficult for conventional simulations to accurately capture these conditions. “

Rui Zhu, Ph.D., assistant professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Oklahoma

To address this challenge and provide a clearer understanding of the electrical, mechanical, and fluid dynamics in arrhythmic hearts, Zhu builds on her previous modeling work with cardiac electrical activity and integrates deep learning techniques into these computational simulations of the heart to understand how the multiphysics factors may contribute to arrhythmic conditions.

Zhu's plans are unique because current practice focuses primarily on understanding the electrical activity of the heart. Therefore, the primary diagnostic tool for identifying arrhythmias is a 12-main electrocardiogram, or ECG, which measures the electrical activity of the heart by recording the electrical signals projected onto the surface of the body. Zhu's study of electrical, mechanical and fluid dynamics and their interdependencies will provide a broader picture of what happens in arrhythmic hearts.

Zhu is excited about the educational components of the project. “The aim of the educational activities is to promote a highly qualified healthcare workforce, with a deep understanding of arrhythmia physiology and the advanced methods developed in this project,” she said. With the support of education and healthcare collaborators, Zhu's work will help train the next generation of the healthcare workforce to better understand a disease that affects millions of people in the United States.

Zhu's research has been recognized with multiple paper awards at the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Conferences. She received a BS in Industrial Design and an MS in Human Factors in Design from Harbin Institute of Technology and received her PhD in Industrial Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

NSF Career Awards support early career role models in research and education and guide advancement in organizations. It is the organization's most prestigious award for early career faculty.

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