Digital twins and beating hearts

There's nothing like a good birthday party, especially one filled with games and fun activities. The Auckland Bioengineering Institute might have missed their 20th birthday due to Covid-19, but they were determined to throw a good ole shindig. Claire Concannon visits to find out what they've been up to for the past 20 years, and what the plan is for the next two decades.

How do you throw a good birthday party?

Have a nice big venue. Invite everyone. Fill it with music, lights, balloons, holographic displays of the respiratory system, computers you can control using your mind, interactive surgery games, giant inflatable colons.

Okay, so maybe the Auckland Bioengineering Institute's 20th birthday party is a little bit different to the usual.

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"The ABI turned 20 at the start of Covid. We wanted to celebrate - of course we couldn't, so now we are putting on this event and inviting the public in," says Professor Merryn Tawhai, deputy director of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI).

Merryn explains that, although celebrations were pushed back a few years, they wanted to mark their two decades of research with style. So, they filled The Cloud on Auckland's waterfront with displays, games and activities based on the work they do from 9 -14* May and opened it up to everyone.

The 'Bioengineering the future' event was a celebration of what the institute has been working on, and what it is working towards. Their research is wide ranging - from fundamental research into how the body works, to developing instruments to improve diagnosis and treatment of disease, to biomimetics and biorobotics.

One idea that they've been working on for some time is the concept of a 'digital twin'. This would be an online model of a person, created using real data and tuned to exactly how that person's body works. This means you would be able to 'test' things in advance on this digital twin. For example, testing if certain drugs work to help an individual, or not.

To create a digital twin - which models how all the body's systems work together - you need fundamental understanding across molecular, cellular, tissue, organ and system scales.

Working to understand the heart at cellular, tissue and organ level is Dr JC Han. JC is focused on how the heart muscle contracts to pump blood around the body, and specifically how much energy it uses to do this. Working with rat animal models and a specific instrument developed at the ABI, JC wants to understand the efficiency of the heart muscle system, and what happens when things go wrong…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details