I can't find a detailed description of what this project is about on your website, so could you please explain in some more detail than just giving a head line such as "research in cardiac electrophysiology"?

How can distributed computing help with this research topic?

Michael.

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President of Rechenkraft.net, Principal Investigator of the RNA World distributed supercomputer.

Hello,

Our part in electro physiology research is to generate the information using virtual models of cardiac cells.

This simulations are used by the scientist to search biomarkers, but that part is out of the scope of this project. Our work is to create a tool for scientist to generate valid simulation of cells. Now, we are using just one model, but in the future we will generate simulation of various cell models and scientist will be able to generate simulations to aid their research.

Do you have any publication(s) of your lab on this topic that you could refer to?

Michael.

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President of Rechenkraft.net, Principal Investigator of the RNA World distributed supercomputer.

Hi Michael,
Thank you for your interest. You are right, the description of the project is a bit poor yet. We have to improve it.

Yes, we have some publications that can explain why we have created a distributed computing project a how it can help us and other resarchers.

The first one is "A Human Ventricular Cell Model for Investigation of Cardiac Arrhythmias under Hyperkalaemic Conditions". J. Carro, J. F. Rodríguez, P. Laguna, E. Pueyo. Phil Trans A, n. 639, pp. 4205 - 4232 (Nov, 2011). doi:10.1098/rsta.2011.0127 http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1954/4205.short

In this first publication we proposed a modification of the Grandi et al (2010) mathematical model of the human ventricular action potential. Models of action potentials have been largely used to study the behavior of the heart in normal or pathological conditions. One of the problems to develop these models is that is very difficult to validate the model against all the known situations showed in the experiments. This is the reason of this modification. We found some situations where the model was no physiological and we proposed some modifications to solve it.

Other problem is that sometimes we need to asume that the variables are independents. As we show in the following paper, this assumtion could be a problem: "In Silico Simulations of Experimental Protocols for Cardiac Modeling". J. Carro, J. F. Rodríguez, E. Pueyo. XXXVI Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Chicago (USA), pp. 5695 - 5698 (Aug, 2014). http://emb.citengine.com/event/embc-2014/paper-details?pdID=2009

Both problems together makes very difficult to modify a model, because in the moment you change something, many other things will change.

Actually, we are writing a paper to publish the last results of our lab. We have used an optimization algorithm based on response surface aproximations to calculate the value of parameters of the model that can't be measured directly. We simulate the cell under different protocols of stimulation and with different combination of the parameters to look for the combination that better represent the experiments. Now, we are able to modify several parameters at the same time, not one at a time as in the first paper.

We are developing a new version of the model and we want to increase the number of parameters we can modify and the number of protocols we can test, but for this we need to make a lot of simulations.

We have started the project with this idea but, as Joel has said, we want to help other resarchers of our field. Many of them need to simulate a lot of variation of the same model to study different problems (to study the effect of some pathologies in the cell, the effect of drugs, etc.). For this reason, we are using standars to permit to add many other models and to simulate many different situations.

I hope these explanations have helped you understand our problem. If not, ask, we will gladly give you more information.

Sincerely,
Jesús

Thanks a lot for this information which, if shortened just a bit, would also make a good primer for your project's webpage.

Michael.

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President of Rechenkraft.net, Principal Investigator of the RNA World distributed supercomputer.

Thanks a lot for this information which, if shortened just a bit, would also make a good primer for your project's webpage.

Michael.

+ 1 :)

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As a cardiac patient with Ventrical-Septal Defect, I am thrilled to participate in this project.

Excellent explanation it makes me proud to participate!

Thanks a lot for this information which, if shortened just a bit, would also make a good primer for your project's webpage.
Michael.

And a "+1" from me :)

I had a few doubt about adding this project to my working list given the scarce information about it on your main page but your explanation answers many questions.
Please put that info on your main page before other people go on overlooking your project because of lack of critical information ;)

Thank you for your comments. We have added it to the main page of the project:
http://denis.usj.es/index.html

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Jesús Carro
Universidad San Jorge
@InSilicoHeart

Thank you for your comments. We have added it to the main page of the project:
http://denis.usj.es/index.html

Could you do it again?

Of course. I've added it to the todo list. It shows some information when you are not logged in. I will review it.

Thanks for remember this after de modification of the web page.

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Jesús Carro
Universidad San Jorge
@InSilicoHeart