Pic Schools

Our Summer and Winter Schools are open to any researcher. They are in coordination with EU key players like Simula and the Virtual Physiological Human Institute.

Pic Online Winter School 2020

November 30th, 2020 – December 2nd, 2020

In our final PIC School you can learn about our progress towards the vision of the cardiovascular Digital Twin. The School has 7 stellar invited speakers, talks from our 15 PIC fellows, and a worshop & modelathon with OpenCARP.

Resources

• Watch all the sessions
• Download the PDF programme (49 kB)
• Vision of the cardiovascular Digital Twin
• OpenCARP 

Second Summer School in Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona was the host town on June 10th-14th for the second PIC Summer School. It was also the 4th VPH Summer School, and therefore, organised in collaboration with Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the VPH Institute. This environment allowed our fellows to meet another cardiac-related ITN: CardioFunXion.

Each day, the first part – until lunch time – consisted on lectures from invited speakers talking not only about cardiac modelling, but about computational modelling of biological processes: from epidemics to lung and airways modelling and simulation. In the second part of the day, all the assistants were divided into groups, each one going to one workshop about modelling some biomedical problem either from the mechanistic point of view, or from the statistical point of view. On the last day, each group presented what their workshop consisted on and what results did they achieve.

Besides the academic training, our fellows also had the chance to learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) by the hand of one of their own, Filip Loncaric, thanks to his clinical background. A visit to the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC) was also organised, allowing the visitors to know more about the history of HPC and, in particular, about the work done in Barcelona.

All this together with a poster session, a mini-workshop organised by the CardiofunXion ITN and some talks from the industry world (like from one of our partners, Medtronic) allowed our fellows to broaden their perspectives and learn more about the virtual twin paradigm in the biomedical context.

First Summer School in Oslo, Norway

The PIC Summer School and Modelathon was held in Oslo, June 18th-29th 2018. It was organised in coordination with Simula’s Summer School in Computational Physiology 2018, and our sister ITN AFibTrainNet, creating a unique hub of international researchers in the area of in-silico medicine.

The School taught the fundamental principles of mathematical modelling in electrophysiology and cardiac muscle mechanics. The main focus was on modelling the cellular-scale biophysical processes responsible for electrical activation and contraction in excitable tissues. Modelling frameworks for tissue scale electrical signal propagation as well as mechanics were also presented. The final part of the School was a series of hands-on toy problems that introduced students to required and useful numerical methods and software tools for computational modelling based on differential equations.

The School allowed the PIC fellows to meet a wide network of researchers to discuss different points of view and approaches, and to establish long term collaborations that will form the vision we have on Personalised In Silico Cardiology. We had representatives from academia, industry and hospitals, and one of the world leaders in the field, professor Andrew McCulloch, who directs UCSD’s Cardiac Mechanics Research Group.

Norwegian minister of Health and High Education, impressed by our joint Summer School: "It's a clever and impressive program. By collaborating with other eager, highly-skilled researchers with different backgrounds, they can exchange knowledge and get new input"

A PIC Steering Committee was also held to review the general status of the consortium, the progress of the ESC and their Career Development.

Webinars

This is the list of Webinars prepared to teach key concepts towards our vision of a Personalised In-silico Cardiology, grouped in these 3 areas:

Computational Cardiac Modelling

Covering finite element theory and methods for general linear and nonlinear analyses with their applications to the solution of problems in solid mechanics, fluids and electrophysiology. The governing physical equations, conservation laws, and mathematical principles are reviewed, and the critical issues of stability, accuracy, and convergence are discussed.

• Webinar 1: Applying Cardiac Modelling to Study Drugs, Devices and Diagnosis (1h).
• Webinar 2: Computational Fluid Mechanics (1h).
• Webinar 3: Computational Electrophysiology (1h).
• Webinar 4: Reduced Models: CircAdapt (1h).

Medical imaging & biomedical signals

Overview of medical data acquisition, enhancement, analysis, and visualization. This course is divided in 3 main blocks: (1) medical imaging acquisition and analysis, (2) fundamentals of digital signal processing, and (3) machine learning. The focus of the course is a series of practical experiences in processing cardiac data.

• Webinar 5: Image Acquisition and Analysis (1h).
• Webinar 6: Echocardiography (1h).
• Webinar 7: Digital Signal Processing (1h).
• Webinar 8: Machine Learning (1h).

Medical devices and therapies

Gives an insight into the implanted devices and sensors to support and monitor cardiac function, such as pacemakers, ventricular assist devices, and sonomicrometry. It covers their functional and measurement principles, their challenges, strengths and weaknesses, and standards for safety and biocompatibility issues.

• Webinar 9: ECG, Cardiac Devices: Pacemakers (1h).
• Webinar 10: Cardiac Sensing: Sonomicrometry, Catheterised Sensors (1h).
• Webinar 11: Ventricular Assist Devices (VAD) (0.5 h).
• Webinar 12: Healthcare Safety and Quality Standards (0.5 h).

Workshops, Kick-off Meeting and Events