Video: Simulating Patient-specific Nanoparticulate Drug Delivery

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHQY0o8RdS4

In this video, TACC researchers use supercomputers to aid the fight against cardiovascular disease.

As the leading cause of death in the United States, heart attacks are caused by something known as vulnerable plaques, which are fatty lipid pool deposits in the inner layer of the arterial wall. After extensive computational research, TACC helped develop a 14-minute animation to explain the underlying nature of vulnerable plaques and a potential clinical procedure for treatment with the goal of personalizing diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in patients.

Not everyone knows about vulnerable plaque,” said Thomas Hughes, a professor at ICES. “Everybody hears about heart disease and heart attacks, yet vulnerable plaques are often the source—they are very insidious. If a vulnerable plaque ruptures and blocks flow to an area of the heart, it’s a heart attack; if it blocks a part of the brain, it’s a stroke.”

Communicating how this process works to patients can be difficult. but visualizations like this help dramatically. Read the Full Story.