Collaborative Research: Frameworks: A multi-fidelity computational framework for vascular mechanobiology in SimVascular

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Simulations of blood flow in the cardiovascular system are crucial for fundamental research in treatment planning, medical device design, and increasing understanding of how cardiovascular diseases develop and progress in adults and children. The project team developed SimVascular (www.simvascular.org), a widely used open-source software package providing a complete pipeline from medical image data to patient specific blood flow simulation and analysis. Now the aim is to extend and enhance SimVascular to include mechanobiology: how biological responses are influenced by mechanical forces from flow and blood pressure. These features will allow modeling of the long-term mechanistic adaptations of the body in ways that were not previously possible. Such methods are critical for assessing long-term outcomes and the underpinnings of disease progression in the circulatory system. While SimVascular has primarily impacted clinical applications in the past, inclusion of mechanobiological models has huge potential to broaden the impact on basic science communities in vascular and developmental biology, tissue engineering, and bioprinting. This Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI) project will develop and publicly release a novel suite of multifidelity simulation tools for modeling vascular biomechanics and mechanobiology in the open source SimVascular project. The team has grown SimVascular into a vibrant and modernized open-source suite, with demonstrated impact in research, education and training. In this project, SimVascular will be expanded to include software and cyberinfrastructure that links biomechanics with mechanobiology. This will enable the research community to study longer-term mechanistic adaptations of the circulatory system. Such methods are critical for assessing long-term outcomes and the underpinnings of disease progression across multiple scales. Specifically, a suite of new capabilities to SimVascular will be added linking blood flow and tissue biomechanics at multiple fidelities with models of mechanobiology across scales in organ-to-microscale vascular networks. To facilitate software adoption, accompanying educational and training materials will be provided, and a sustainable software ecosystem to increase the user community and ensure continued availability and evolution will be maintained. This award by the NSF Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation and the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems within the NSF Directorate for Engineering. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.