research topics

Biological findings are rapidly increasing, however, the mechanism of how they cooperate to achieve tissue or organ level functions are still not clear. The computer simulations of biological function elements are expected to reveal such mechanisms. In our laboratory, the mechanisms that how the elementary biological function models are cooperating together to realize complex organ level functions are analyzed based on the large scale computational models.

Current research topics are as follows:

  1. biological function simulation
    In this topic, we are investigating how the tissue or the organ level functions are realized from the elementary biological elements. The analysis is based on the simulation of the complex biological models. The main target of the research is heart. We are constructing a heart model from detailed model of cardiac cells together with detailed circulation model and other related models. Corresponding to each research topic, several models are constructed which spreads from the detailed 3 dimensional motion model to the lumped parameter circulation model which includes ANS model.heart23000
  2. simulation platforms
    The biological function simulation models are totally different from the conventional simulation target in the sense that for the programmers, the model equations are too difficult to understand. This implies that the simulation softwares are very difficult to validate by the software engineers. Thus, in our project, we are developing tools which can use the model equations which are developed by biological researchers, and safely combine them together to construct larger scale models.
    CellCompiler webpage
    TecML webpage
    CellMLCompiler developer page
  3. measurement with MRI(Magnetic Resonance Imaging)
    Measurement of heart shape and motion are performed with MRI. We are also interested in MRI sequence programming.