Dimitrios Fotiadis
rjscouceiro2019-01-10T16:18:55+00:00
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Fotiadis is Prof. of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems (MEDLAB), University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece. Dr Fotiadis is the founder of MEDLAB, which now is one of the leading centers in Europe in Biomedical Engineering with activities ranging from the development of health monitoring systems to big data management and multiscale modelling. The Unit is an active center for many R&D projects and is considered as a center of excellence for human tissues modelling activities with international collaborations with the research community, industry and public organizations. Dr Fotiadis is affiliated researcher of the Biomedical Research Dept. of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, FORTH, and member of the board of Michailideion Cardiac Center.
Dr. Fotiadis’ main research interests include wearable systems, multiscale modelling and intelligent processing of medical and related data. He developed wearable systems for the monitoring, treatment, motivation and coaching for patients with neurodegenerative diseases and other chronic conditions. Those systems combine a set of sensors and biosensors with decision making tools and patient/ecosystem feedback, as well as behavioral models and patient adherence mechanisms. In modelling, he developed multiscale models for the prediction of atheromatic plaque growth, based on realistic reconstruction of arteries from various imaging modalities. He pioneered the modelling of complex human structures, such as bones, to perform in silico clinical trials of various biomedical systems. He employed machine learning techniques to develop predictive models for chronic diseases, exploiting medical, lifestyle, environmental, and genetic data which are integrated with existing knowledge and models to improve diagnostic and predictive accuracy. He works in the harmonization and integration of data from longitudinal cohorts.
Dr. Fotiadis is the recipient of many awards, including the Academy of Athens Award and active member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, being a member of the Technical Committee of Biomedical and Health Informatics and the Chairman of the IEEE EMBS Greek Chapter. Dr. Fotiadis coordinated the organization of many EMBS conferences and other events.
Abstract
In silico clinical trials: towards transforming the biomedical industry and the healthcare delivery
The process of designing, developing and assessing a medical device is time consuming and costly. The appropriate level of testing and evaluation, before the introduction in the market and
commercialization, is of utmost importance, due to the potential associated patient risks. The identification of a safe and efficacious medical device involves the testing in the laboratory (in vitro),
and then on living organisms, initially on animals (in vivo) and then on humans (clinical evaluation/trial). However, as a result of the complexity of human diseases, there is a substantial
difference between individuals, while an inevitable variability in anatomy and pathology is observed.
In addition, while a medical device could perform well in controlled laboratory experiments and pre-clinical studies, several issues(eg. failure) could appear during or after clinical trials. In such case, there is no insight on the small modifications/improvements that could be implemented so as to achieve a better performance. Inevitable there is ample room for improving the complete design and development chain of medical devices towards reducing the animal and human testing, and addressing the imperfections of in vitro and in vivo predictions. Over the last decade, there has been a huge investment in in silico approaches through the incorporation of patient-specific computer models, that account on the comprehensive biological and biomedical knowledge and advanced modelling paradigms, mimic the complexity of human disease mechanisms and answer several difficult questions, such as: “Why do some patients react in a specific way to the implantation of a medical device, while others not?” In silico clinical trials will address the individual variability and evaluate how medical devices affect individual patients, while in parallel reduce the regulatory hurdles and refine the regulatory pathways for accelerating their approval and delivery to the market.
