How simulation helps
Medical-device development cycles are long and expensive. Early simulation work can rule out non-viable design directions before they use up hardware, animal studies, or clinical time. It can also produce evidence about physical mechanisms of the kind that supports regulatory submissions.
- Flow analysis of blood-contacting devices: shear-stress exposure, residence time, and hemolysis prediction.
- Modeling of microfluidic and diagnostic systems: mixing, reagent transport, and carryover.
- Drug delivery and dissolution modeling.
- Transport and mechanics in tissue-engineering scaffolds.
Background & selected work
My work in this area combines peer-reviewed research in cellular mechanics and blood damage with applied modeling of devices and diagnostics. Here are a few representative examples.
Tissue engineering for 3D-printed liver constructs
I contributed modeling to an implantable, 3D-printed hydrogel device with intrinsic perfusion channels (portal-venous and hepatobiliary) for liver tissue engineering. The work aims to keep engineered tissue viable by delivering blood and nutrients where they are needed.
Lieberthal, Sahakyants, Szabo-Wexler, Hancock, Spann, Oliver, et al. “Implantable 3D printed hydrogels with intrinsic channels for liver tissue engineering.” PNAS 121(47), e2403322121 (2024). Read the paper →
Real-time surrogate models for blood damage
A surrogate model is a fast approximation of a full simulation. I built deep-neural-network surrogate models that produce near-real-time visualizations of blood damage (hemolysis) in the FDA benchmark nozzle. The model handles its input data in a physics-informed way, so that it satisfies the no-slip boundary conditions automatically.
Spann, Barakat & Hancock. “Deep Neural Network Surrogate Model for Blood Damage Modeling in the FDA Hemolysis Benchmark.” COMSOL Conference. View the abstract →
Microfluidic and diagnostic systems
I use COMSOL Multiphysics® to understand and optimize fluidic diagnostic systems. The work covers concentration gradients, reagent dissolution, chemical carryover, and mixing. Rapid tests for targets such as SARS-CoV-2 and cancer biomarkers depend on this physics.
Spann. “Modeling Fluidic Diagnostic Systems.” AIChE Institute for Learning & Innovation webinar (sponsored by COMSOL). Watch the webinar →