The underlying biophysics and clinical uses
Session Chair:
- Paul Iaizzo, University of Minnesota
Keynote Presentations:
- "Cardiac Pulsed Field Ablation: The underlying biophysics and clinical uses."
Henri Roukoz, University of Minnesota - "The Wonder of Pulsed Field Ablation"
Damijan Miklavcic, University of Ljubljana
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Presentation Details
Henri Roukoz, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine, Cardiovascular Division
Section Chief, Electrophysiology Director of Complex and Congenital Ablation
"Cardiac Pulsed Field Ablation: The underlying biophysics and clinical uses."
A review of the clinical uses of cardiac pulse filed ablation.
Bio: Dr. Roukoz is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Cardiovascular Medicine Division, Electrophysiology Section. His clinical interests include epicardial and endocardial ablation of complex arrhythmias (ventricular tachycardia and atrial fibrillation), device extraction and implantation of EP medical devices. Dr. Roukoz is also the director of the adult congenital EP program at the University of Minnesota.
Damijan Miklavcic, PhD
Professor
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
"The Wonder of Pulsed Field Ablation"
Pulsed field ablation (PFA) has emerged as a non-thermal, tissue-selective approach for cardiac ablation, generating substantial enthusiasm and rapid clinical adoption. Alongside these expectations, concerns have also arisen, and important questions remain unanswered, particularly regarding the comparative efficacy and safety of different PFA systems.
This presentation will review the current understanding of the biophysical mechanisms underlying PFA and the challenges associated with the design and development of safe and effective systems. The process of electroporation will be described at the membrane, cellular, and tissue levels. In addition, the three interdependent components of a PFA system—waveform, catheter, and generator—will be examined, with emphasis on how mismatches among these elements may adversely affect both safety and efficacy.
Bio: Damijan Miklavcic is a tenured professor at University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering. He is the world-leading expert in the field of electroporation. In the past 30 years, he contributed to a better understanding of electroporation on membrane, cell and tissue level. He has been involved in basic research demonstrating improved efficacy of selected cancer drugs by electroporation on preclinical level, developing electrodes and devices, and providing numerical modelling towards treatment planning. He was involved in the development of irreversible electroporation for cardiac ablation (i.e. Pulsed Field Ablation), which holds great promise and lends itself as a game changer in cardiac electrophysiology. He is also developing DNA delivery to cells by electroporation for cell and gene-based therapies.
Damijan Miklavcic was the main proposer and chair of the COST TD1104 Action from 2011-2016. He initiated a series of and organized 1st World Congress on Electroporation in 2015. He was one of the founding members and first elected president of the international Society of Electroporation-Based Technologies and Treatments. He is the editor of the Handbook of Electroporation with 2998 pages and 278 chapters. He served as reviewer in more than 70 journals and serves/ed as editorial board members in Radiology and Oncology, Bioelectrochemistry Journal, IEEE TMBE and Bioelectromagnetics. He is listed inventor in eight international patents and has published over 500 peer reviewed research papers.
According to Google scholar, his works received more than 40.000 citations, h-index 109. Personal web page.
Paul Iaizzo, PhD, FHRS, FIEEE
Professor
Department of Surgery
Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology
Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
Bio: He also serves on the graduate faculties in Biomedical Engineering, Neuroscience, Integrative Biology & Physiology, Biological Science, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and Mechanical Engineering. He is the Director of the Malignant Hyperthermia Diagnostic Center and Medtronic Professor of Visible Heart® Research. Additionally, he is the Associate Director and Medtronic Chair of the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, also at the University of Minnesota. He earned both MS and PhD degrees (Focus: Physiology/Neurophysiology) from the University of Minnesota. His main research focus is translational systems physiology, where his research group does a broad range of studies. The Visible Heart® Laboratories are well known for their multimodal imaging techniques of functional cardiac anatomies and device testing within large mammalian hearts, including human: see the Atlas of Human Cardiac Anatomy (http://www.vhlab.umn.edu/atlas/). Other research areas include: cardiac pacing and ablation, muscle pathophysiology and biophysical properties, thermoregulation, black bear hibernation, 3D computational modeling and printing and educational uses of virtual reality. In 2002, he was acknowledged as a “Distinguished University Teaching Professor”. Since 1990, he has trained over 200 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and medical students in his laboratories. Dr. Iaizzo, has authored more than 280 original articles, over 100 book chapters, edited 5 books, and is on numerous patents related to medical devices. In 2012, he was named to College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) for "outstanding contributions to research and education in translational systems physiology and cardiovascular engineering". In 2015 he was named a Fellow of the Heart Rhythm Society and in 2016 was made a Senior Fellow of IEEE.