Cardiovascular disease continues to be the leading cause of death and disability in the USA and other Industrialized Nations. Diverse data collected over the past three decades reveals central roles of biomechanics and mechanobiology in both the progression and the treatment of most cardiovascular diseases, thus pointing to the need for advanced biomechanical analyses. Because of the complex geometries, material properties, fluid-solid couplings, and adaptive response of the circulatory system to physiologic loads, such analyses necessarily must utilize advanced computational methods based on fundamental principles of cardiovascular systems. This short course will review background information (and key references) on cardiovascular anatomy and physiology, common congenital and acquired cardiovascular diseases, the basic biological responses of cells and tissues to altered mechanical loading, appropriate constitutive relations and boundary conditions, and novel computational methods. In particular, a new computational approach will be described for synthesizing information from vascular cell biology, biosolid and biofluid mechanics, and mass transport for purposes of understanding better vascular physiology and pathophysiology, surgical planning, and the design of devices that must function in continually adapting tissues. Hence, the workshop should be of equal interest to those in basic research and industrial R&D.

This six-hour workshop will be divided into six related sessions,

Session 1: Overview of Cardiovascular Anatomy, Physiology & Pathophysiology
Session 2: Cellular and Tissue Responses to Mechanical Loads
Session 3: Relevant Constitutive Relations and Boundary Conditions
Session 4: Patient-Specific Modeling (Imaging, Models, Meshing, Simulation, V&V)
Session 5: Approaches to Modeling Biological Growth and Remodeling, A New Class of Computational Fluid-Solid-Growth Models
Session 6: Illustrative Examples and Open Problems

[1] Humphrey JD (2002) Cardiovascular Solid Mechanics: Cells, Tissues, and Organs. Springer-Verlag, NY, 757 pages.
[2] Taylor CA (2004) Blood Flow. In Encyclopedia of Computational Mechanics, Edited by E. Stein, R. de Borst and T.J.R. Hughes. Volume 3: Fluids. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., pp. 527-543.

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