This is a past event.

Biomedical Engineering Research Seminar

Dr. Selene Pirola

Delft University of Technology (Netherlands)

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has emerged as a powerful tool to investigate development of cardiovascular pathologies and assess cardiovascular device performance. In this talk, Dr. Pirola will provide an overview of her research work in image-based modelling for assessing haemodynamics in the thoracic aorta.

The talk will first introduce how medical imaging can be effectively used to inform and validate patient-specific CFD models. Dr. Pirola will address common assumptions made during simulation setup and their effect on obtained results. Further, she will discuss the potential of data-driven generative models in mitigating the impact of these assumptions.

Dr. Pirola will then provide an overview of her latest works dealing with haemodynamics in thoracic aortic disease and after aortic valve surgery. She will first present her work on thoracic aortic aneurysm disease, particularly focusing on the role of wall shear stress in aneurysm growth and dissection. Subsequently, she will introduce the latest research from her Lab, comparing aortic haemodynamics following aortic valve reconstruction and bioprosthetic valve implantation.

Bio

Dr. Selene Pirola holds a MSc Degree in Biomedical Engineering obtained from Politecnico of Milano (Italy). Here, she worked on 4D flow image analysis for aortic haemodynamic assessment in bicuspid aortic valve. She then pursued a PhD in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London (UK), where she developed image-based patient-specific models to study aortic blood flow in aortic valve and aorta disease. During her Post-Doc she further refined these models and applied them to investigate aortic haemodynamics in aneurysm disease and following surgical intervention (e.g., aortic valve surgery, left ventricular assist device implant). In 2021, she received a BHF CoRE fellowship in support of her work on cardiovascular disease modelling at the MRC London Institute of Clinical Sciences. Since September 2022, Dr. Pirola is Assistant Professor in the BioMechanical Engineering Department where her research Lab focuses on biomechanics modelling to study neurovascular and aortic disease