PhD Defence Claudia Alessandra Manetti

Keywords: Computational modelling, CircAdapt, In silico trial, Cardiac resynchronization therap
 

"Virtual Patients, Real Data: Exploring Mechanistic and Therapeutic Advances in Heart Failure through Virtual Patients and Cohorts"

Current cardiovascular disease treatments often group patients based on shared symptoms to standardize care, but this approach can miss important individual differences that affect outcomes. This is especially true for advanced therapies like cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), where many patients do not experience expected benefits.

To address this, computational modeling provides a way to explore the complex mechanisms behind varied patient responses. By creating virtual patients and cohorts, researchers can study differences both at the individual and population levels, gaining deeper insights into disease progression and treatment effects that support more personalized care. 

This PhD thesis applies these concepts to dyssynchronous heart failure and CRT by combining mechanistic studies, synthetic data generation, and in silico trials. Using the CircAdapt model of the human heart and circulation, virtual patients and cohorts were efficiently generated to help refine CRT strategies, aiming to improve treatment precision and effectiveness. 

Click here for the live stream.