Dr Wahbi El-Bouri MEng (Hons), DPhil (Oxon), PGCert, AFHEA, MIET
Lecturer, Digital Twins and in silico Clinical Trials Cardiovascular & Metabolic Medicine
About
Personal Statement
Keywords: Digital twins, in silico clinical trials, computational modelling, virtual physiological human
I joined the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences in November 2020 as a Tenure Track Fellow (since Lecturer) in Digital Twins and in silico Clinical Trials. My background is in biomedical engineering, and as such I seek to use engineering principles, through in-silico modelling and data analysis, to help understand cardiovascular disease and its progression and for medical device and drug optimisation.
I completed my MEng (Hons) in Engineering at the University of Oxford in 2012 after which I went on to take up several jobs modelling heat pumps, hydroelectric dams, and assessing biofuel feasibility in India. I returned to Oxford shortly after to complete my DPhil in biomedical engineering, where my research focussed on multi-scale modelling of blood flow through the microcirculation in the human brain, with a focus on trying to link the ‘unobservable’ small scale vessels to observable clinical imaging through mathematical models. I completed my DPhil in 2017 and took up a research position at Southampton General Hospital and the University of Southampton where I worked on methods to measure intracranial pressure in patients non-invasively – specifically through measuring and analysing the movement of the eardrum. I returned to the University of Oxford in 2018 to take up a postdoctoral position on an EU funded Horizon 2020 grant entitled INSIST (In-silico clinical trials for the treatment of acute ischaemic stroke). This project aims to develop in-silico clinical trials to test mechanical thrombectomy devices on simulations of blood flow and metabolism in the entire human brain.
I joined the Liverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences to work at developing healthcare Digital Twins in vascular disease, ranging from the microvasculature in the retina and brain, through to the major blood vessels and heart. Developing these digital twins, I work at the intersection of in-silico modelling, AI, and cardiovascular physiological understanding. The aim of my research is to develop in-silico models, informed by patient data, to develop personalised predictions for patient outcomes, as well as to develop population level in-silico clinical trials for various cardiovascular diseases and their treatments.