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     COLLOQUIUM OF THE COMPUTATIONAL MATERIALS SCIENCE CENTER
                                AND 
           THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTATIONAL & DATA SCIENCES
                            (CSI 898-Sec 001)
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Insights into Cardiac Arrhythmia using a Multiscale Systems Biology Approach
                          Saleet Jafri
Department of Molecular Neuroscience, Krasnow Institute for Advance Studies, 
                George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the developed world and is 
being recognized as and increasing problem in the the developing world. A 
fatal cardiac arrhythmia is often the underlying cause of death.  One class of 
arrhythmia arises from defects in calcium dynamics in the heart. Calcium plays 
a major role on heart function linking the electrical depolarization of the 
heart with contraction.  We use an integrative multiscale model to explore how 
defects on the level of molecular function can lead to arrhythmia in the heart.

These simulations cross many orders of magnitude on the spatial and temporal 
scales to provide insight into mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmia.  To make this 
problem tractable we have employed novel computational algorithms and leverage 
modern GPU computing techniques.  The insights gained by these studies provide 
advanced our understanding of arrhythmia such as how an arrhythmia is initiated, 
how genetic defects can contribute to arrhythmia, and how do changes to structure 
and gene expression during disease increase the likelihood of arrhythmia.

                           November 16, 2015
                               4:30 pm
                    Exploratory Hall, room 3301 
                          Fairfax Campus

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 PM.
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Find the schedule at http://www.cmasc.gmu.edu/seminars.htm