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UCT RESEARCH REPORT 2012
Research Projects
Myocardial Infarction and
Heart Failure
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) will become the leading
cause of death by 2020, superseding infectious diseases
such as HIV, TB, and malaria. The risk of CVD has been
reported to increase with the improvement of economic
wealth and social environment, in particular in Africa.
A higher risk for acute myocardial infarction, the leading
causes of congestive heart failure, has been reported in
the black African group in sub-Saharan Africa due to an
increased level of hypertension. Similarly, the American
Heart Association expects in the near future a dramatic
increase in CVD incidences in Africa, in particular in the
younger population, in conjunction with the emergence
of a new epidemic of obesity, diabetes and uncontrolled
hypertension. Up to one-third of infarct patients develop
heart failure, making myocardial infarction the most
common cause of heart failure. The fact that 30 to 40%
of patients die from heart failure within the first year
after diagnosis, even with optimal modern treatment,
indicates the urgent need for alternative therapies.
The aim of this collaborative research project, which is
sponsored by the national Centre for High Performance
Computing, is the development and utilisation of HPC
tools to study the biomechanics of myocardial infarction
(MI) and emerging MI therapies based on biomaterial
injection into the infarct. The presented problem
is highly complex, including the representation of
the architecture of cardiac soft tissue with dispersed
biomaterial at micro- if not nano-scale, the highly non-
linear elastic myocardial mechanics, and the electro-
sensitivity of the myocardial muscle. Comprehensive
treatment exceeds conventional computing resources
in terms of problem size and complexity of the
developed codes to capture the physical phenomena
with sufficient accuracy. HPC will form an imperative
platform for this research towards the advancement of
MI therapies and prevention of heart failure.
The project is led by Associate Professor Thomas
Franz and Professor Daya Reddy, in close collaboration
with UCT’s Dr Sebastian Skatulla, Dr Dieter Legner,
Associate Professor Neil Davies, Dr Jeroen Kortsmit
and Laura Dubuis, and Dr Carlo Sansour of the
University of Nottingham, and provides an excellent
framework within which seven postgraduate students
are being trained and mentored.
Biomechanics of the
Upper Airway
Sleep apnoea is a type of sleeping disorder
characterised by pauses in breathing or instances of
shallow or infrequent breathing during sleep. Each
pause in breathing is called an apnoea, and can vary
in duration from at least ten seconds to minutes.
There are three types of sleep apnoea and, according
to the World Health Organisation, more than 120
million people worldwide suffer from this chronic
respiratory disease.
In another CERECAM project, Professor Daya Reddy
and PhD student Jean-Paul Pelteret are concerned with
the use of modelling and computational techniques to
develop a better understanding of the mechanisms
of obstructive sleep apnoea. The initial phase of this
work involved the development of a model for the
non-linear anisotropic behaviour of the tongue, which
comprises a number of muscle groups, as well as of
other relevant soft tissues. Further work has entailed
the simulation of fluid-structure interaction involving
the tongue and soft palate, and upper airway flow.
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