From Lab to Heart: Insights from a Bioengineering Expert on Prosthetic Heart Valve Development
Joe Lyons •
October 31, 2023
Lakshmi Prasad Dasi, co-founder/chief technology officer of DASI Simulations and a professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, will be the speaker for Ashland University’s seventh annual “Lab to Marketplace” seminar, on Thursday, Nov. 9, at 7:30 p.m. Dasi’s presentation, “Engineering Structural Heart Treatment Decisions: From Lab to the Operating Room,” will be held at Ronk Lecture Hall in the Dwight Schar College of Education. It is free and open to the public.
The lecture will address the development and commercialization of AI-driven heart valve replacement simulations that can guide surgeons and improve patient outcomes after heart valve surgery. A leading bioengineer and researcher in the field of prosthetic heart valves, cardiovascular biomechanics, biomaterials and devices, Dasi co-founded DASI Simulations, a medical technology start-up located in Columbus, Ohio, with Teri Sirset in 2019.
Sharing a common interest in using physical models of the heart and vascular system to help improve heart valve replacement surgeries, Dasi and Sirset established the company to provide surgeons with computer models to predict and visualize the interaction between various devices and a patient’s unique anatomy. The modeling software was recently cleared for use with patients by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the company was also one of 61 chosen (out of 1,150) to participate in the MedTech Accelerator program.
Dasi, who has raised more than $6 million in federal funding towards heart valve research, holds the Rozelle Vanda Wesley Endowed Professorship at Georgia Tech, where he directs the Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics lab which studies the function and mechanics of heart valves and other complex cardiac defects. He previously held faculty positions at Ohio State University and Colorado State University.
Dasi earned a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, India, a master’s degree in civil and environmental engineering from Georgia Tech and a Ph.D. with a focus on fluid dynamics and turbulence from Georgia Tech.
The “Lab to Marketplace” seminar series is designed to bring speakers to the AU community who are engaged in translational research, research that uses scientific knowledge to develop new technologies and other applications. It is supported by a generous gift from Kimmie and Steve Humrichouser and the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship in the Dauch College of Business and Economics.
For more information on this seminar, please contact Paul Hyman, professor of biology at AU, at phyman@ashland.edu or 419-207-6309.