The new NSF award supports arrhythmia in sick hearts

Cardiovascular disease affects almost half of the adults in the United States, constituting a significant challenge for public health. To improve diagnosis And treating one such a state of heart, Dr. Rui Zhu, assistant professor at the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, received the National Science Foundation Early Career Development Program Award to discover the mechanisms behind the mechanisms behind the mechanisms of heart rhythm.

A healthy human heart beats in a regular rhythm, but heart arrhythmia disturbs this pattern due to the improper effect of electrical impulses in the muscular tissue of the heart. ZHU research focuses on modeling complex systems and plans to use this specialist knowledge to solve the challenge of modeling sick hearts.

Multiphysics simulations can give us a more realistic way of understanding how arrhythmias work. But these simulations were built mainly for healthy hearts. This is due to the fact that in fact sick hearts can be very different in anatomy, pathology, etc. It hinders conventional simulations accurately capturing these conditions. “

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

To deal with this challenge and ensure a clearer understanding of electrical, mechanical and liquid dynamics in arrhythmic hearts, ZHU will build its previous modeling work with heart electrical activity and integrates the techniques of deep learning with these computing heart simulations to understand how multi -profile factors can contribute to arrhythmic conditions.

ZHU plans are unique because the current practice focuses mainly on understanding the electrical activity of the heart. As such, the main diagnostic tool for arrhythmia is 12-year-old electrocardiogram or ECG, which measures the electrical activity of the heart by recording the electrical signals of the heart displayed on the surface of the body. Examination of electrical, mechanical dynamics and ZHU fluids and their interdependence will give a wider picture of what is happening in arrhythmic hearts.

ZHU is excited about the educational elements of the project. “The purpose of educational activities is to support the highly qualified healthcare workforce with a deep understanding of arrhythmias and advanced methodologies developed in this project,” she said. Thanks to the support of colleagues in the field of educational and healthcare institutions, ZHU will help train the next generation of workforce to better understand the disease that affects millions of people in the United States.

ZHU research has been honored with several paper prizes at the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers and Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Conferences. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in industrial design and multiple sclerosis in the field of human design in the design of the Harbin Institute of Technology design and obtained the degree of doctor of industrial engineering at Pennsylvania State University.

NSF Career Awards support the Early Career Faculty to serve as role models in research and education, as well as conducting in organizations. This is the most prestigious organization award for the Early Career Faculty.