We are Linz Lab for In-Silico Medical Interventions but what comes to mind when you hear “in-silico”? 🤔
In-silico medicine means using mathematical models and computer simulations to better understand and personalise medical interventions. 💻🩺
In our lab, we develop patient-specific computational models for ablation therapies 🫀, study the efficacy of extracorporeal life support 🫁, investigate the progression of tumors such as gliomas 🧠, and explore many other applications to deliver accurate and reliable in silico tools in medicine.
Our goal? Better predictions, better interventions, and more personalised care 🎯
💡 Do you have a research idea, clinical problem, modelling challenge, or potential collaboration in mind? We'd love to hear from you! Reach out to our postdoctoral researches Argyrios Petras, Beata Ondrusova or Davide Baroli or contact our group leader Luca Gerardo-Giorda 📨
Our colleague Argyrios Petras just presented the outcomes of his work, “In-Silico Assessment of Contact Force Effects in Cardiac Catheter Ablation,” at #VPH2026 organized by VPH - The Society for In Silico Medicine in Milan.
His work shows that contact force influences lesion formation in both RFA and PFA, although its effects differ between the two techniques. These findings highlight the importance of contact force in better understanding and optimizing cardiac ablation procedures🫀
Congratulations to Argyrios and his co-authors Luca Pasini, Minha Anees, Zoraida Moreno Weidmann, David Viladés Medel, Aurel Neic, Edward Vigmond,Jose M Guerra and Luca Gerardo-Giorda! 👏
One more talk from our lab coming up at #VPH2026 this Friday! 💻🧠
It’s September, which for many of us marks the end of the summer break ☀️🍂 Throughout this month, we’d like to share a little more about who we are and what we do. And what better way to start than with the latest photo of our Linz Lab for In-Silico Medical Interventions? 📸
From right to left, we have Matteo Micocci and Minha Anees, both PhD students, and Rainer Schelling, our student intern. Behind them are Laura Füssel, also a student intern, and Luca Pasini, a PhD student. Moving to the back row, we have Beata Ondrusova, a postdoc, next to our group leader Luca Gerardo-Giorda. Alongside them are Davide Baroli and Argyrios Petras, both postdoctoral researchers.
Stay tuned to learn more about each of us, our research, and the work we do! 💻 🫀 🧠 🫁
Our team represented by Argyrios Petras, Davide Baroli, and Luca Gerardo-Giorda joined researchers from around the world at the 14th European Conference on Mathematical & Theoretical Biology (#ECMTB2026), hosted by the University of Graz 🇦🇹. It was an inspiring week of sharing ideas, building connections, and exploring how mathematics, engineering, and biology can come together to address complex challenges.
💻❤️ Argyrios Petras presented a multiscale computer model that simulates how pulsed field ablation (PFA) affects heart tissue over time, helping improve treatments for cardiac arrhythmias.
⚡🎯 Davide Baroli introduced a physics-based model that captures how electrical pulses, heat, and tissue interact during irreversible electroporation (IRE), with the goal of making melanoma treatments more precise and effective.
🫀🏥 Luca Gerardo-Giorda presented an advanced PFA model that accurately predicts the size and shape of treatment lesions in the heart by accounting for heart muscle fiber orientation and changes in tissue properties, bringing simulations closer to real clinical outcomes.
Events like #ECMTB2026 highlight the power of interdisciplinary research, and we are already looking forward to the next edition at #ECMTB2028 🚀!
What a fantastic week at the Electrophysiology Summer School in Bordeaux! 🇫🇷
It was an incredible week full of learning and amazing networking opportunities.
The program offered a mix of theoretical and experimental sessions led by experts in electrophysiology, along with a clinical perspective of the field.
A big thank you to the Université de Bordeaux and the IHU LIRYC - Heart rhythm disease Institute for hosting us.
Thanks also to Linz Lab for In-Silico Medical Interventions for allowing me to participate in this event!
In our latest study, we used computational modeling to investigate how return cannula design can influence recirculation and oxygen delivery in veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VV-ECMO).
VV-ECMO is a life-support technique that temporarily replaces lung function 🫁 by oxygenating blood outside the body and returning it to the venous circulation in patients with severe respiratory failure. However, not all of this oxygen-rich blood reaches the systemic circulation. A portion can be immediately drawn back into the drainage cannula and recirculate through the ECMO circuit. This phenomenon is known as recirculation, and it reduces the overall efficiency of oxygen delivery.
Using computational modelling 💻, we compared commercial returning cannulas with our novel performance-driven designs across different ECMO flow rates. Results show that cannula design has a significant impact on VV-ECMO performance, especially at higher flow rates. In particular, our prototypes with closed tips showed reduced recirculation and increased oxygen saturation, without a noticeable increase in complications such as thrombosis or hemolysis.
Thus, our findings suggest that there is still room for improvement in return cannula design, and that some of our proposed designs could improve VV-ECMO performance, mainly in patients who depend heavily on full respiratory support due to severely impaired lung function.
This work also highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration 🤝, and we are grateful to the entire team from for their contributions. Many thanks to Beata Ondrusova, Argyrios Petras, Johannes Szasz, Jens Meier, and Luca Gerardo-Giorda! We look forward to continuing this collaboration and bringing these results closer to clinical use 🚀.
This work was supported by LIT SeedPlusMED ECMOPT from JKU – LIT Open Innovation Center.
Full paper: https://lnkd.in/deUHfdM9
LinzLab website: https://lnkd.in/ekrHK43B
Our colleague Argyrios Petras participated in the 9th CMBE: Computational and Mathematical Biomedical Engineering - International Conference Series (#CMBE2026), held in Kobe, Japan 🇯🇵, from June 22–24. #CMBE2026 brought together leading researchers, academics, practitioners, and graduate students from diverse disciplines to discuss the latest advances in computational biomedical engineering.
🎤 During the conference, Argyrios chaired the mini-symposium "Personalization and Uncertainty Quantification in Digital Twins for Medical Applications," which he co-organized with Matthias G., Elias Karabelas, and Sebastian Brandstäter. The symposium focused on cutting-edge methods for quantifying and propagating uncertainties in medical digital twins, as well as strategies for model personalization through detailed anatomical modeling and multi-patient studies.
🫀 In addition, Argyrios presented research conducted in collaboration with his PhD student, Luca Pasini, introducing a computational framework for personalized monopolar cardiac pulsed field ablation (PFA). Their work integrates contact mechanics and electric field simulations within anatomically realistic, pig-specific geometries to predict lesion formation during monopolar cardiac PFA, contributing to the development of more personalized and reliable treatment planning.
Congratulations to Argyrios and Luca on sharing their latest research at #CMBE2026, and thanks to the organizers for a great conference! 👏
Every year, the ÖH JKU barbecue brings together students and staff of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences at Johannes Kepler Universität Linz for an afternoon of great food 🍖 and fun activities 🎉.
One tradition is especially hard to miss: a whole pig slowly roasting on the grill. Watching it roast sparked a question: How does heat actually propagate through an entire pig during the cooking process? 🤔
This year, we decided to go beyond curiosity and investigate it scientifically. As part of her bachelor's thesis, Katharina Buchmayr developed a thermal simulation of the roasting process, modeling how heat spreads through the pig over time. Kathi presented her results right at the barbecue, connecting computational modeling 💻 with a real-world (and tasty 😄) problem.
She was joined by her supervisors, Luca Gerardo-Giorda and Argyrios Petras, as well as Beata Ondrusova, Minha Anees, Luca Pasini, Aldo Karamani, Rainer Schelling, Giuseppe Mallo and Nikolaos T. who came to support her presentation 🎓.
Although roasting a pig is far from a clinical application, the same computational methods are used to model heat transfer in biological tissue and support the development of thermal treatment strategies. 🏥
Thank you Michela Sabbatino for being part of our lab over the last three months! Best of luck with your future plans 🚀, and we hope to see you again soon 👋
