503 Computational Vascular Biomechanics

T. Christian GasserKTH Royal Institute of Technology
Michael GeeTechnische Universität München
Thomas FranzUniversity of Cape Town
Daniela Valdez-JassoUniversity of Illinois at Chicago
 
Computational vascular mechanics plays prominent roles in the study of biological systems and processes. It may advance our understanding of physiological and pathological mechanisms of organs, interaction between medical devices and biological material, drug delivery pathways, the interplay between structure and function of tissues, mechanotransduction and many others. Although to some extent traditional applied mechanics concepts are directly applicable to solve biomechanical problems, the inherent property of vascular tissue to adapt to mechanical and biochemical environments, remains a challenging modeling task. Likewise, in order to investigate the vasculature adequately, i.e., to gain a comprehensive view of a biological process, sophisticated and robust numerical schemes are needed to couple among structural, fluid, chemical and other fields. On the other hand, the inter-patient variability of input parameters such as loading conditions or constitutive properties weakens the patient-specific predictability, and hence the clinical benefit, of numerical simulations. Finally, laboratory testing of the vasculature is constraint, where ethical aspects of sample harvesting and maintaining an adequate testing environment are mentioned specifically.
For this minisymposium, we solicit contributions that address challenges directly related to vascular bioengineering, i.e., solving structural, hemodynamical, chemical and other life science problems. This includes investigations at the organ, tissue and cellular levels. Contributions that consider 
o novel numerical concepts 
o coupled and multiscale analyses
o novel constitutive models that account for non-linearities and/or multiscale approaches
o applications with potential clinical relevance
o physiological and pathological mechanisms
o Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses
o active/growth/remodeling properties of biological tissues
o non-linear rheological models
o clotting and thrombus formation modeling
o inverse and in-vivo parameter estimation
o medical image-based studies
are particularly welcome.