Welcome to
Biomedical Engineering

With advanced computational modeling that uses clinical data collected directly from the patient, “digital twins” will be able to pinpoint exactly how — and when — to treat neurovascular disease.

A person can live for years with an aneurysm (a bulging in a blood vessel), never knowing if — or when — it will fatally rupture. But by using patient data to construct what’s known as a “digital twin,” clinician-scientists will be able to predict not only when a person’s aneurysm may burst, but how they’ll respond to treatment.

This research is the focus of David Paydarfar, M.D., chair of Dell Med’s Department of Neurology and director of the Mulva Clinic for the Neurosciences, and biomedical engineering professor Michael Sacks, Ph.D. Similar to how hurricane forecasting technology relies on thousands of observed hurricanes, Paydarfar and Sacks’ team is working to build a massive database of patient data to accurately model future outcomes.

“This builds on the idea that no two people are identical,” Paydarfar says. “Let’s take a patient we’ll call Mr. Smith: So you have his age, his gender, sex, risk factors, blood pressure and so forth; all that demographic and medical data has to be paired with this computational tour de force to determine the chance that Mr. Smith will have this rupture in the next day, in the next week, in the next month, in the next year — or at all.”

From Abstract Models to Personalized Medicine

Until now, standard modeling techniques have relied on theoretical data rather than real clinical data taken from the individual patient in question.

“So what's the difference between a digital twin model and a conventional model? It really boils down to the ability to make it ‘updatable’ and be able to utilize it in the hospital or clinic,” says Sacks, who directs the James T. Willerson Center for Cardiovascular Modeling and Simulation at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences. “Being able to use additional data that becomes available — imaging or physiological or genetic data, for example — to update and improve the model is key.”

A critical part of Paydarfar and Sacks’ work to this point has involved bringing in experts in MRI technology to produce crystal-clear, 3D “movies” of the blood vessels pulsating with each heartbeat. They provide the needed detail for accurate forecasting.

“UT really has the potential to be a unique site for these kinds of breakthroughs,” Paydarfar says. “In a project and team like this, you have an interventional vascular neurologist, a computational neurologist, a clinician and computational physicist, and an applied biomedical engineer all collaborating. That sort of team is very hard to replicate. We just have an enormous opportunity here with that depth and breadth of knowledge.”

News

A UT Austin Biomedical Engineering student looks into a microscoope

Imaging Science & Informatics Training Program Welcomes New Cohort

The Imaging Science & Informatics Predoctoral Training Program at UT Austin is a unique academic adventure, and its membership recently grew even larger. Six biomedical engineering graduate students are now a part of the prestigious program that includes summer externship opportunities and a clinical immersion experience.

Keep reading

How Hydrogels Can be Used for Stem Cell Transplants

In a collaborative research endeavor, UT Austin Department of Biomedical Engineering professors Janet Zoldan and Nicholas Peppas received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to spearhead the development of an in vitro hydrogel culturing system for the ex-vivo expansion of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) derived from human induced pluripotent stem cell lines.

Keep reading
An exterior view of the UT Austin Department of Biomedical Engineering building.

UT Austin Professors Receive Best Paper Award From Annals of Biomedical Engineering

UT Austin Department of Biomedical Engineering professors James Tunnell and Michael Sacks received the prestigious Best Paper Award from the Annals of Biomedical Engineering (ABME).

Sacks and Tunnell were co-authors of the paper, “Simultaneous Wide-Field Planar Strain–Fiber Orientation Distribution Measurement Using Polarized Spatial Domain Imaging,” along with three other researchers.

Keep reading
Nicholas Peppas in front of a bookcase

Professor Nicholas Peppas Receives 2024 CMBE Shu Chien Achievement Award

UT Austin Biomedical Engineering professor Nicholas Peppas is a recipient of the 2024 BMES CMBE Shu Chien Achievement Award. The recognition is the most prestigious honor bestowed by the BMES Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE) Special Interest Group.

Keep reading

Research Areas

100%

Of Ph.D. students are fully funded

2,000+

Texas Biomedical Engineering alumni around the world

81%

Of undergraduate students participate in research

Spotlights

Discover what's happening at Texas BME

Meet Your ‘Digital Twin’: They Might Save Your Life

Learn more

Two Texas BME Professors Receive NSF CAREER Awards

Learn more

3 Tips for a Winning NSF GRFP Application

Learn more

Wang Receives NIH R35 Grant to Enhance Optogenetics Technology

Learn more