Emory Cardiovascular Imaging & Biomechanics Core

The Emory Cardiovascular Imaging & Biomechanical Core laboratory (ECBC) is a unique lab under the mentorship of Emory Professor Dr. Habib Samady. This lab was formed by a collaborative effort between Georgia Tech and Emory University where interventional cardiologists, engineers, mathematicians, post-docs, cardiovascular fellows, bio-statisticians along with graduate students and international scholars work together on ground breaking research in cardiovascular medicine and gain vital experience in various aspects of research methodologies. Our current focus is developing wall shear stress (WSS) models to predict ‘vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque’ among patients with stable chest pain. We use various intracoronary imaging technologies such as Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to interrogate atherosclerotic plaques. In addition, a very accurate 3-D reconstruction is then done using either bi-plane angiograms or CT/MRI. Post-processing is then done using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations to calculate wall shear stress (WSS) on various segments of the atherosclerotic plaque. Our other investigative works include using shear stent patterns to improve coronary stent design and microvascular dysfunction.