New AI platform can help assess vascular diseases

An international team of scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that could one day be used in a system to assess vascular diseases, which are characterised by the abnormal condition of blood vessels. The AI-powered platform combines machine learning and a specially-designed microfluidic chip with analysis of 2D video images of blood flow and the application of physical laws, to infer how blood flows in 3D. In tests, it accurately predicted blood flow characteristics such as speed, pressure, and shear stress, which is the stress exerted by the blood flow on the vessel wall. The ability to determine these characteristics accurately could be a critical support for clinicians in detecting and tracking the progression of vascular diseases since the abnormalities that the platform could spot (such as an abrupt change in speed or shear stress of blood flow) may indicate the presence or progression of a vascular disease. The platform and its proof-of-concept findings from the research team led by NTU President and Distinguished University Professor Subra Suresh, Brown Professor George Em Karniadakis, and MIT Principal Research Scientist and NTU Visiting Professor Ming Dao are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on 22 March.