[{"content":"","date":"2025-12-16T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/arstanbek-okenov/arstan-cover_hu15238656635387619227.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/arstanbek-okenov/","title":"Arstanbek Okenov"},{"content":"When electrical waves do not propagate coherently through the heart, a dangerous arrhythmia can form.\nDue to the apparent complexity of these patterns, it is challenging to see what is going on, and to devise appropriate intervention. Especially the chaotic phase during which wave breaks form and either vanish or organise into spirals, is hard to grasp.\nRecently, we found that in complex excitation patterns, special points exist: heads (end points of fronts), tails (end points of wave backs) and pivots (end points of conduction blocks). We showed that these points persist over time and space as they possess topological charge.\nIn our paper in Chaos, resulting from the Master\u0026rsquo;s thesis of Aaron Gobeyn, we design and implement fast algorithms for the detection of head and tail quasiparticles.\nFigure reprinted from Gobeyn et al., Chaos 35, 123105 (2025), licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license\n","date":"2025-12-02T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/12/02/publication-in-chaos/zeus-paper-fig_hu1594591802398541396.jpeg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/12/02/publication-in-chaos/","title":"Publication in Chaos"},{"content":"Following our recent publication in Physical Review Letters, the LUMC press office translated the results into an accessible story, which you can read here.\n","date":"2025-10-21T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/10/21/outreach-story-in-lumc-newsletter/wiskundig-hart-710x710_hu18025998674420040183.webp","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/10/21/outreach-story-in-lumc-newsletter/","title":"Outreach story in LUMC newsletter"},{"content":"There are many open questions on how the patterns of electrical activity are organized inside the cardiac wall. Our paper in Physical Review Letters sheds new light on this: the conduction blocks that create and sustain arrhythmia can be quite general surfaces, with handles and side branches. The special points (quasi-particles, cardions) that we identified in surface recordings, now become three types of closed curves.\nWe also got two mathematical bonuses: the twiston seen in simulations by Fenton and Karma (Chaos, 1998) is a cardion of co-dimension 3, and one can create an untwisted scroll wave that rotates around a M\u0026quot;obius strip!\nIn view of future applications, we present a mathematically consistent way to classify and analyse three-dimensional patterns in excitable media.\n","date":"2025-09-18T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/09/18/publication-in-physical-review-letters/PDL_9010_u9_hu6197427219062872969.png","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/09/18/publication-in-physical-review-letters/","title":"Publication in Physical Review Letters"},{"content":"After four years of intense research, Desmond Kabus received his dual PhD degree from KU Leuven and Leiden University Medical Centre. Congratulations on behalf of your promoters Hans Dierckx and Daniel Pijnappels!\n","date":"2025-06-10T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/06/10/desmond-defends-his-phd/desmond-bul-wide_hu8277030678070647693.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/06/10/desmond-defends-his-phd/","title":"Desmond defends his PhD"},{"content":"I was invited by colleague Dr. Edris Mahtab to give a talk about digital innovation for the Innovation Day of the Cardiothoracic Surgeons from the University Medical Centers of Amsterdam and Leiden.\n","date":"2025-05-22T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/05/22/lecture-on-digital-innovation-in-healthcare/banner-AMC-2025-wide_hu1522284856759864803.jpeg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/05/22/lecture-on-digital-innovation-in-healthcare/","title":"Lecture on digital innovation in healthcare"},{"content":" Promotors: Hans Dierckx, Vivi Rottschäfer Supervisors: Tim De Coster Subject: Spiral wave interaction Studied Mathematics Year 2024-2025 ","date":"2025-02-07T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/debora-hoogendijk/debora-thesis-cover_hu6937530602189580224.png","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/debora-hoogendijk/","title":"Debora Hoogendijk"},{"content":" Promotors: Edris Mahtab, Hans Dierckx Supervisors: Samuel Max, Laurent Coopmans Subject: Development of a VR Application for ECMO Training with Dynamic Patient Physiology Modelling Studied Technical Medicine Year 2024-2025 ","date":"2025-02-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/bram-schalkwijk/bram-cover_hu8168865556288367446.jpeg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/bram-schalkwijk/","title":"Bram Schalkwijk"},{"content":"Here I am even closer to experimental data and clinicians. I am part of the Experimental Cardiology Laboratory, working closely with Prof. Daniel Pijnappels, Dr. Twan de Vries and Dr. Vincent Portero.\n","date":"2025-01-16T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/01/16/moving-to-lumc/LUMC-jan25_hu17631507874697861089.png","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2025/01/16/moving-to-lumc/","title":"Moving to LUMC"},{"content":"Electrical patterns in the heart drive its mechanical contraction and therefore the pumping of blood. Since the cardiac muscle cells can transmit the electrical signal themselves, this pattern can go wild, leading to dangerous arrhythmias.\nTo understand and control complexity of excitation patterns is still challenging. In our paper, we asked ourselves: \u0026ldquo;What are the most fundamental building blocks of such a pattern, as seen on the heart\u0026rsquo;s surface?\u0026rdquo;\nWe started by considering that elementary (topological) building blocks are the regions of excited and unexcited tissue and the borders between them. Additionally, there are conduction blocks, i.e. zones where the next wave cannot yet propagate. Now, if one colors the medium in according to these 3 regions (excited, unexcited, local block), there are special points where these regions meet: heads (end points of wave fronts) and tails (end points of wave backs). These points should always be pairwise created or annihilated (with opposite chirality). Also, if one supposes that conduction blocks are thin, its end points should also appear in pairs.\nThe three sets of points are therefore akin to elementary particles in physics (say the 3 flavours of quarks). We propose to call these cardions, in analogy to baryons, fermions, twistons etc.\nTo our own surprise, we found that during \u0026rsquo;normal\u0026rsquo; evolution of patterns, the cardions bind together into `core particles\u0026rsquo;, which could explain why they were not observed before. During more \u0026lsquo;violent\u0026rsquo; events, such as arrhythmia formation and termination, the cardions recombine.\nTo keep track of the topological changes during arrhythmia formation, we propose a diagrammatic way, see above. Presently, this is a schematic drawing reminiscent of the famous Feynman diagrams in physics; however, in our case there is (not yet) a deeper meaning such as the path integrals or cross-section calculations in particle physics.\nNonetheless, we show that heads, tails and pivots all have their own topological charge ($\\pm$ 1/2), which constrains the possible interactions.\nWe are currently developing automated pipelines for cardion detection and analysis, which will enable to perform statistical analysis and systematically investigate arrhythmia initiation mechanisms.\nFigure adapted from Arno et al., Scientific Reports volume 14, 28962 (2024), licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license\n","date":"2024-11-22T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/11/22/feynman-like-diagrams-in-the-heart/arno-feynman-fig4_hu9020641335581312430.png","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/11/22/feynman-like-diagrams-in-the-heart/","title":"Feynman-like diagrams in the heart!"},{"content":"I received the 2024 LUMC fellowship, a competitive grant that will enable me to build my own research line at the Leiden University Medical Center. The topic of this grant is Creation of predictive in silico models from cardiac tissues and patient recordings to unravel arrhythmia mechanisms.\n","date":"2024-11-19T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/11/19/lumc-fellowship-awarded/fellowship-awarded_hu12216514315960418521.JPG","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/11/19/lumc-fellowship-awarded/","title":"LUMC Fellowship awarded"},{"content":"I traveled to Germany to speak at two consecutive conferences: Computing in Cardiology (CINC, Karlsruhe) and the Cardiac Physiome Meeting (Freiburg)\n","date":"2024-09-13T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/09/13/attending-cinc-and-cardiac-physiome-conferences/karlsruhe-CINC-2025_hu3988571955135562070.jpeg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/09/13/attending-cinc-and-cardiac-physiome-conferences/","title":"Attending CINC and Cardiac Physiome Conferences"},{"content":"Within the BICEPS project, we want to incorporate uncertainty quantification into cardiac modeling. This conference was a perfect opportunity to present our first results. Being part of a mini-symposium about \u0026hellip;, two presentations uncovered our work on the project so far. Marie Cloet gave a talk about \u0026hellip; . Maarten Volkaerts, member of the NUMA research team and also part of the BICEPS project, presented his results on \u0026hellip; .\n","date":"2024-02-27T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/02/27/siam-uq24-conference/cover_hu5423536533547188456.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/02/27/siam-uq24-conference/","title":"SIAM-UQ24 conference"},{"content":"They introduce a fast and efficient data-driven methodology for creating reliable mathematical models of cardiac excitation using recorded videos at the tissue level.\nIn a nutshell, the paper demonstrates that recorded movies at the tissue level can be used to swiftly generate reliable mathematical models for cardiac tissue excitation. By leveraging exponentially weighed moving averages and polynomial regression, a rapid and efficient pipeline for creating in-silico models is unlocked. This method takes just a few minutes!\nCongratulations to Desmond and his co-authors from the Leiden University Medical Center, Tim De Coster, Antoine de Vries and Daniel Pijnappels.\nThe full paper can be found here:\nhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.compbiomed.2024.107949\n","date":"2024-01-25T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/01/25/new-publication-by-kabus-et-al.-2024/cover_hu2191021675499710120.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/01/25/new-publication-by-kabus-et-al.-2024/","title":"New publication by Kabus et al. 2024"},{"content":"Video from a previous edition:\n","date":"2024-01-23T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/01/23/junior-college-2024/cover_hu14539406882969118874.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2024/01/23/junior-college-2024/","title":"Junior College 2024"},{"content":"In his talk he elucidated how Sudden Cardiac Death is a complex interplay of different systems. Dylan demonstrated the methods he developed to study these systems in an experimental setting.\nMany thanks to Dylan for coming over to Kortrijk and to the physics group at Kulak, with specifically Dr. Wouter Deleersnyder for organizing this seminar.\n","date":"2023-12-11T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/12/11/seminar-talk-by-dylan-vermoortele/0_hu14878518368636506781.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/12/11/seminar-talk-by-dylan-vermoortele/","title":"Seminar talk by Dylan Vermoortele"},{"content":"The general topic is excitable systems: Think of the spread of rumor, flow of information in the brain or electrical activation of cardiac tissue. These can all be modeled on a network, and by studying excitation patterns in the network, we can learn more about the behavior of news in social networks, brain cells and cardiac activation.\n\u0026ldquo;Scroll Waves and Filaments in Excitable Media of Higher Spatial Dimension\u0026rdquo; is the result of research during Marie\u0026rsquo;s master\u0026rsquo;s thesis.\nThe published version can be consulted on the Physical Review Letters website:\nhttps://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.208401\nThe paper is also available on arXiv:\nhttps://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.14861\nCover image generated by Dall-E 3.\n","date":"2023-11-17T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/11/17/new-publication-by-cloet-et-al.-2023/cover_hu2278816822604936051.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/11/17/new-publication-by-cloet-et-al.-2023/","title":"New publication by Cloet et al. 2023"},{"content":" Promotors: Prof. Hans Dierckx Supervisors: Desmond Kabus Subject: Detection and analysis of quasi-particles in excitable media Studied Physics Year 2023-2024 ","date":"2023-10-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/aaron-gobeyn/cover_hu14776825873346215606.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/aaron-gobeyn/","title":"Aaron Gobeyn"},{"content":"Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.108.034218\nCover image generated by Dall-E 3.\n","date":"2023-09-06T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/09/06/new-publication-by-li-et-al.-2023-including-hans-dierckx/cover_hu17505624183822211896.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/09/06/new-publication-by-li-et-al.-2023-including-hans-dierckx/","title":"New publication by Li et al. 2023 including Hans Dierckx"},{"content":"Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2023.1213218\nCover image generated by Dall-E 3.\n","date":"2023-07-10T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/07/10/new-publication-by-leenknegt-et-al.-2023/cover_hu6273796598259896241.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/07/10/new-publication-by-leenknegt-et-al.-2023/","title":"New publication by Leenknegt et al. 2023"},{"content":"Are you doing research in mathematical biology? Here are five ideas that can be helpful along the way.\nAnalytical solutions are still valuable Biology exhibits non-linear structures whose slow drift can be found via perturbation theory Geometric principles are out there Break free from old concepts if they don\u0026rsquo;t work Can we spot overarching ideas? ","date":"2023-06-21T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/06/21/lecture-of-hans-dierckx-at-the-bio-dynamics-days-2023/cover_hu7438537426400696002.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/06/21/lecture-of-hans-dierckx-at-the-bio-dynamics-days-2023/","title":"Lecture of Hans Dierckx at the Bio Dynamics Days 2023"},{"content":"Fundamental building blocks The contraction of our hearts is coordinated by a traveling non-linear wave of electrical depolarization, which locally triggers mechanical contraction of the cells. Hence, abnormal patterns lead to inefficient pumping of blood. Depending on the precise emergent pattern and where it takes place, this may lead to chronic fatigue, blood clot formation and stroke, or sudden cardiac death.\nRemarkably, many of the precise patterns are still incompletely understood. The more complex patterns are a complicated interplay between wave fronts, wave backs and conduction blocks (when a front hits a wave back). Such conduction block may result in the formation of a spiral-shaped rotating pattern (also called scroll wave in 3D, or rotor by medical doctors) that sustains itself and was seen in tachycardia. However, experimentally observed rotors have shorter lifespan that those in simulations. In case of unstable rotors, they further break-up into an irregular pattern (fibrillation), of which chaotic behaviour is expected but not yet proven.\nPrevious fundamental achievements include: a geometric theory for wave fronts and rotor filaments; determining the minimal thickness below which no 3D instability will happen; extending the notion of filament tension to quasi-periodic cores as observed in experiments.\nOngoing research entails the elaboration of a new topological description that unifies the concepts of conduction block, quasi-periodic rotors and filaments via topological phase defects. Furthermore, these findings are combined with experimental data, for physics-based inversion and source reconstruction of cardiac signals.\nCurved-space viewpoint on cardiac anisotropy The cardiac muscle cells are organised in such a way that the conduction of the electrical waves through the heart go faster in one direction, called the fiber direction, than the other ones. This is comparable to the gps system that tells you, it will take 30 minutes to go from Kortrijk to Ghent when you take the highway instead of 50 minutes only using small roads. So we can redefine distance in terms of travelling time, instead of using the Euclidean distance.\nIn mathematics or physics terms, this comes down to endowing cardiac tissue with a metric tensor, and from geometric considerations, the heart then becomes a Riemannian manifold.\nUsing tensor calculus, geodesics and covariant derivatives, it is thereby possible to obtain general theoretical results on the time-evolution (drift and stability) of wave fronts and rotors in the heart. These efforts are laying the foundation for the field of \u0026ldquo;cardiac geometrodynamics\u0026rdquo;.\nYour browser doesn't support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead. Application of mathematical physics concepts to cardiac excitation Here is a non-exhaustive list of concepts from mathematical physics that are being used in our research:\nGeodesics, metric tensors, curved space\nAnisotropy of wave propagation can be handled elegantly using a curved-space formalism. A glimpse thereof was added to a famous cardiology textbook. \\ Symmetry breaking\nWave fronts and rotors have less Euclidean symmetries than the reaction-diffusion equation, leading to critical eigenmodes of the linearized operator (Goldstone modes). Bra-ket notation\nIn perturbation theory, we typically project onto the response functions, which can be written in Dirac\u0026rsquo;s notation: e.g. $\\left\u0026lt;Y|PV\\right\u0026gt;$. The use of quantum mechanical notation in biological context is sometimes confusing referees. Particle-wave duality\nIn contrast to quantum mechanics, our operators are non-selfadjoint. As a result, the right-hand eigenfunctions are waves (spirals) while left-hand eigenfunctions are localized, like particles. This localization explains why it is so difficult to restore chaotic activity in the heart. See this great video. Curved-space coordinate systems\nIn general relativity theory, it is customary to use nearly Euclidean coordinate systems, e.g. Gauss coordinates, Fermi coordinates or Riemann normal coordinates. We apply all of these in a biological context (and sometimes need to further extend them still). Action principle\nPart of the emerging rotor dynamics can be derived from an action principle. Topological charge \u0026amp; defects\nCardiac rotors revolve around a rotor filament, which is a topological defect. We recently showed that the defect in 3D should be a phase defect surface. String-like and brane-like dynamics\nWe previously showed that rotor filaments act as strings in a background space that is curved due to anisotropy. In the recent phase defect interpretation, filaments become brane-like objects that are phase defect surfaces. More topological constraints apply to the edges of those phase defect surfaces. Green\u0026rsquo;s functions\nCertain aspects can be dealt with classical superposition, e.g. forward calculation of electrograms and quantifying mechano-electrical feedback on rotor drift. Branch cuts, complex analysis\nRecent work shows that at the heart of a linear-core rotor, there is a phase discontinuity or phase defect. Feynman-Hellman theorem\nWe use this theorem to calculate filament rigidity, which explains why in thin tissue slabs, full-fledged 3D instability cannot occur. Pauli matrices and commutators\nEven in three dimensions, rotation of scroll waves occurs in a plane, and the set of Pauli matrices is a suitable basis shape to calculate the shape of circular scroll wave cores, as well as the isotropic invariants of higher-order corrections. Higher-dimensional embedding\nWe extended Wellner\u0026rsquo;s minimal principle for rotor filaments to inhomogeneous media by adding a fourth spatial dimension which restores homogeneity. Schrödinger\u0026rsquo;s equation\nThe link between the diffusion and Schrödinger\u0026rsquo;s equation goes back a long time and has inspired the path integral formalism for quantum mechanics. Here, we explained paradoxical onset of ectopic (additional) heart beats using the analogy - in the other direction. Building theory from experimental observations To make the connection between theory and practice, we need to test our ideas on observations of excitation patterns in real hearts. However, these data are scarse, since it is not yet possible to view inside individual patients\u0026rsquo; hearts.\nAn experimental method that can be used on explanted hearts is optical voltage mapping. Here, a voltage-sensitive dye is administered to cardiac tissue to visualize excitation patterns with high resolution. Our first analysis within the group of arrhythmia patterns provided by Prof. E. Tolkacheva (Minneapolis, USA) demonstrated that cardiac rotors in rabbit hearts are organised around extended phase defect lines, rather than point singularities, forcing us to rethink the classical topological approach to cardiac arrhythmia organisation. In the next paper, we also identified the phase defects in cell cultures of human immortalized atrial myocytes, grown in the Pijnappels lab (University of Leiden, the Netherlands).\nIn ongoing work, we are performing pattern analysis and reconstruction on intracardiac electrograms, as well as ultrasound recordings.\n","date":"2023-06-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/theory-of-rotors-and-arrhythmias/cover_hu4182849593456571670.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/theory-of-rotors-and-arrhythmias/","title":"Theory of rotors and arrhythmias"},{"content":"Check out this event\n","date":"2023-05-26T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/05/26/5th-opencarp-user-meeting/4_hu3819272770334353478.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/05/26/5th-opencarp-user-meeting/","title":"5th OpenCARP user meeting"},{"content":" ","date":"2023-05-15T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/05/15/siam-ds23-conference/cover_hu9924698017683358484.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/05/15/siam-ds23-conference/","title":"SIAM-DS23 conference"},{"content":"","date":"2023-05-02T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/05/02/group-photo-in-heartkor-shirts/group_hu10910816707633468820.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/05/02/group-photo-in-heartkor-shirts/","title":"Group photo in HeartKOR shirts"},{"content":" ","date":"2023-04-28T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/04/28/visit-of-thorrez-lab/cover_hu2234735049745892390.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/04/28/visit-of-thorrez-lab/","title":"Visit of Thorrez' Lab"},{"content":"Show me the article (Dutch only).\n","date":"2023-03-31T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/03/31/popular-science-article-about-digital-twins/cover_hu9901268365541232148.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/03/31/popular-science-article-about-digital-twins/","title":"Popular science article about digital twins"},{"content":" Promotors: Hans Dierckx, Joeri van der Veken Supervisors: Marie Cloet Subject: Prediction of wave break locations in the heart from extrinsic curvature calculations Studied Biophysics Year 2022-2021 ","date":"2023-03-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/david-van-hee/cover_hu6027422356841221419.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/david-van-hee/","title":"David Van Hee"},{"content":"Video from last year\u0026rsquo;s edition:\n","date":"2023-01-10T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/01/10/junior-college-2023/cover_hu420040476328247700.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2023/01/10/junior-college-2023/","title":"Junior College 2023"},{"content":"Saturday, 27th of November was a day attributed to science in Flanders. Here at kulak, many groups organised or workshop, show or exhibition to promote science and let the general public have a taste of the wonderful science that is done. HeartKOR was present as well with a presentation on the basics of the heart and cardiac arrhythmia, some posters and some interactive simulations both in 2D and 3D (By Fenton and Abouzar Kaboudian) so people could play with adding obstacles in a cardiac medium and generate electrical patterns in the heart connected to arrhythmia like spiral waves.\nMore info\u0026hellip;\nLook here as well\u0026hellip;\n","date":"2022-11-27T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/11/27/day-of-science-2022/cover_hu2076310673439594884.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/11/27/day-of-science-2022/","title":"Day of Science 2022"},{"content":"Contact details 📌 Office A342, Etienne Sabbelaan 53, 8500 Kortrijk 📧 Look up email address on KU Leuven Who\u0026rsquo;s Who 📚 Publications via Lirias 📑 Publications via ORCID 🌍 Profile on LinkedIn Questions and answers What did you study for you bachelor\u0026rsquo;s and master\u0026rsquo;s degree? I got my bachelor\u0026rsquo;s and master\u0026rsquo;s degree in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Ghent. During these 5 years I got to explore a wide variety of elective subjects including biophysics, computational physics, machine learning and astrophysics. I always loved the great variety of the education and was happy to combine ML techniques and astronomy in my master thesis.\nWhy did you choose to do a PhD in this team? This research is situated in a very wide research domain, combining different scientific fields, while also juggling the wildly different scales necessary to tackle the problems accurately. Such kind of endeavors can also be found in astrophysical settings and lay very close to my heart. Luckely some elective courses during my education introduced me to interesting biophysical questions and their massive impact on human health, so I was able to find this opportunity.\nWhat would you say is your speciality within the research group? Focusing on the inversion modelling of cardiac wave propagation both in the electrical and mechanical domain, I have to make sure to use as much of the physical and clinical information as possible in order to obtain a fast yet accurate model. So I would say finding the best parts of every field and facilitating them to be friends is key in my research.\nWhat are your hobbies/after work activities? I\u0026rsquo;m trying to learn some music theory and piano. In addition to annoying everyone around me with ears, I like to read, go to the gym, play video games or gather with as much people as possible and pull out some nice board games.\nDo you have a fun fact about yourself that you want to share? For about 23 years of my life I couldn\u0026rsquo;t stand realistic, bloody images, so fainting during the rabbit dissection was nothing new. However as I wanted to go into the cardiac scene, I was able to (almost) completely cure my blood phobia after a few weeks of exposing myself to bloody movies, how-to-draw-blood yt tutorials and emergency hospital shows.\n","date":"2022-11-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/nathan-dermul/cover_hu6391208365308494884.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/nathan-dermul/","title":"Nathan Dermul"},{"content":" Promotors: Giovanni Samaey, Piet Claus, Hans Dierckx Subject: Uncertainty quantification in cardiac excitation models Contact details 📌 Office A342, Etienne Sabbelaan 53, 8500 Kortrijk 📧 Look up email address on KU Leuven Who\u0026rsquo;s Who 📚 Publications via Lirias 📑 Publications via ORCID 🌍 Profile on LinkedIn Questions and answers What did you study for your bachelor\u0026rsquo;s and master\u0026rsquo;s degree? I studied Mathematics at KU Leuven Campus Kortrijk in my bachelor\u0026rsquo;s and I completed my Master in Applied Mathematics, with research option, at KU Leuven.\nWhy did you start a PhD in this group? Since my bachelor\u0026rsquo;s thesis on the computation of the ECG out of a Cellular Automaton model of the heart, I was sold for the research conducted here. It\u0026rsquo;s a perfect match between mathematical methods and a life-saving, relevant biological application.\nWhat would you say is your speciality within the research group? In my Master\u0026rsquo;s, I chose both courses in applied mathematics, such as engineering science, plasma astrophysics and theoretical physics, and courses in pure mathematics. I think the skill I want to deploy is translating abstract mathematical concepts to useful applications and vice versa, in a way that the methods are both practical and rigorously underpinned.\nWhat is your favorite part of doing a PhD? I have only started, but I would say the act of doing science together. At Kulak, there are many colleages with whom I can discuss my research and my educational tasks. It\u0026rsquo;s cool to reach further with the support of your peers.\nWhat is your least favorite part? To be honest, I have not done anything that I did not like thus far\u0026hellip; Besides the administration to fulfill the bureaucratic formalities, that\u0026rsquo;s mostly quite a burden!\nWhat are your hobbies/after work activities? I play rugby in the women\u0026rsquo;s team of Rugby RSL, the Bullets. Furthermore, I am member of the running club Dapalo in my home town. During my studies, I have been active as a volunteer in the chiro, which is a youth movement. Now and then, I still help during their activities.\nDo you have a fun fact about yourself that you want to share? In my last year of high school, I went on an exchange to Denmark with AFS. Now, I still understand Danish and other related Scandinavian languages. Which is helpful, since those countries are my favorite destination.\nMaster thesis at KU Leuven Kortrijk Promotor: Hans Dierckx Supervisor: Louise Arno Subject: Non-linear waves in excitable networks Studied: (applied) Mathematics Year 2021-2022 ","date":"2022-10-13T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/marie-cloet/cover_hu17186128408564322463.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/marie-cloet/","title":"Marie Cloet"},{"content":" \u0026ldquo;An amazing experience and amazing people! Liryc is a place where modeling meets the clinic every day. Inspiring! I look forward to working with them on phase defects during arrhythmia.\u0026rdquo;\nLouise ","date":"2022-10-13T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/10/13/research-stay-in-bordeaux/cover_hu8482172815524672551.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/10/13/research-stay-in-bordeaux/","title":"Research stay in Bordeaux"},{"content":"In January, Lore went to Sint-Paulus College in Wevelgem to give a lecture about some of our research done here at HeartKOR! They learned how mathematics and physics can be used to help solve cardiac arrhythmias.\nThe fifth grade students of this high school, together with their teacher, Lore Seynhaeve, tried to recreate a spiral wave!\nNot only the Sint-Paulus College will be able to enjoy our lectures. Lore is also going to the Broederschool in Roeselare, and Louise will present our research to the young minds of school Atheneum Bellevue Izegem . This is all part of the program Scientist@School, organized by KU Leuven. Pictures of these event can be found in the foto album.\nLouise went to Atheneum Bellevue in Izegem to give the same lecture about some of our research done here at HeartKOR! They learned how mathematics and physics can be used to help solve cardiac arrhythmias.\n","date":"2022-10-12T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/10/12/scientist@school/lore_hu10183673446879240363.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/10/12/scientist@school/","title":"Scientist@School"},{"content":"","date":"2022-10-10T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/10/10/another-group-photo-at-the-kulak-orchard/group_hu17848430492575954007.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/10/10/another-group-photo-at-the-kulak-orchard/","title":"Another group photo at the KULAK orchard"},{"content":"More info\n","date":"2022-10-07T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/10/07/mathematics-exhibition-imaginary/cover_hu1635157676377050275.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/10/07/mathematics-exhibition-imaginary/","title":"Mathematics exhibition \"Imaginary\""},{"content":"Desmond Kabus has published this paper with Louise Arno, Lore Leenknegt, Alexander Panfilov, and Hans Dierckx.\nThe full paper can be found here:\nhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271351\nCover image generated by Dall-E 3.\n","date":"2022-07-12T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/07/12/new-publication-by-kabus-et-al.-2022/cover_hu11885122334638703685.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/07/12/new-publication-by-kabus-et-al.-2022/","title":"New publication by Kabus et al. 2022"},{"content":" More info Liryc: Heart Rhythm Institute Bordeaux ","date":"2022-07-03T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/07/03/summer-school-in-bordeaux/cover_hu10538481636426561988.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/07/03/summer-school-in-bordeaux/","title":"Summer School in Bordeaux"},{"content":"Geometry-driven dynamics in reaction-diffusion systems The cardiac monodomain equations can be formulated as a set of parabolic differential equations of the reaction-diffusion type. Most of our theoretical results apply to the wide class of reaction-diffusion equations, only the existence of stable traveling waves or vortices needs to be assumed.\nTherefore, our findings also apply to other reaction-diffusion systems, such as active diffusion of substances across the cell membrane, pattern formation on animal furs, signaling waves at the cellular of multicellular level, oxidation waves, and oscillating chemical reactions (e.g. the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction).\nOne of our theoretical predictions on the drift of scroll waves in a medium of stepwise thickness, inspired by a cardiac application, was shortly thereafter experimentally verified in the BZ reaction by Steinbock et al:\nH. Ke, Z. Zhang, and O. Steinbock, \u0026ldquo;Scroll Wave Drift Along Steps, Troughs, and Corners\u0026rdquo;, Chaos 25, 064303, 1-7, 2015 pdf\nSpiral wave chimeras Spiral wave chimeras are emergent structures in oscillatory media, with spatial coexistance of synchronized and asynchronized regions. The first chimeras were found in non-locally coupled media (i.e. with action-at-a-distance), but in collaboration with B.W. Li, we showed that also a classical reaction-diffusion system can generate spiral wave chimeras.\nCover image generated by Dall-E 3.\n","date":"2022-06-21T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/miscellaneous-research-topics/cover_hu12746372011211067206.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/miscellaneous-research-topics/","title":"Miscellaneous research topics"},{"content":"Ultrasound imaging of arrhythmias Even though various heart rhythm disorders can be recognized by electrocardiograms, the exact three-dimensional spatio-temporal pattern of the cardiac activation sequence throughout the cardiac wall is not well understood during rhythm disorders. Imaging these complex wave patterns can be done directly by plunging needle electrodes or needle catheters into the heart, however in human patients this is impossible to do and indirect inverse electrocardiographic techniques are being developed in order to infer the whole image from surface measurements. The best known example is the electrocardiogram (ECG), but to find the precise activation pattern from body-surface measurements is an incompletely solved inverse problem.\nA pilot study from 2018 [1] showed that mechanical deformation of the heart, which can be estimated by ultrasound data, is closely linked to the electrical phenomena during cardiac arrhythmias. This idea opens up new ways of gaining insight into the complex, inherently 3D, electrical patterns in a fast and non-invasive manner. Recent studies have shown that imaging the electromechanical activation sequence with ultrasound data can be helpfull in certain situations (see for example in silico [2], in vivo experiments [3]).\nIn the ICARUS project, we set out to expand upon this technique and bring it to a clinically feasible tool, working in close collaboration the University Hospital UZ Leuven (Gasthuisberg). This collaboration involves the Cardiovascular Imaging and Dynamics group of Prof. Jan Dhooge and the group of Prof. Joris Ector, head of ablation therapies at the hospital. By combining expertise in mathematical modelling, echocardiography and clinical experience, we will advance our understanding of the three-dimensional electrical patterns and improve diagnosis and localization of cardiac arrhythmias.\n[1] Christoph, J., Chebbok, M., Richter, C., Schröder-Schetelig, J., Bittihn, P., Stein, S., \u0026hellip; Luther, S. (2018). Electromechanical vortex filaments during cardiac fibrillation, Nature, 555(7698), 667\u0026ndash;672. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature26001\n[2] Lebert, J., \u0026amp; Christoph, J. (2019). Synchronization-based reconstruction of electromechanical wave dynamics in elastic excitable media. Chaos, 29(9), https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5101041\n[3] Grubb, C. S., Melki, L., Wang, D. Y., Peacock, J., Dizon, J., Iyer, V., \u0026hellip; Wan, E. Y. (2020). Noninvasive localization of cardiac arrhythmias using electromechanical wave imaging. Science Translational Medicine, 12(536). https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aax6111\nInversion of cardiac electrograms When cardiac myocytes activate or deactivate, they act as electrical dipole sources, generating a potential field in the torso. This extracellular potential is recorded on the cardiac surface during surgery, or on the body surface, where it is known as the electrocardiogram (ECG). While the ECG is routinely used to diagnose and classify arrhythmias, it is still not possible to accurately reconstruct the arrhythmia sources in the heart from body-surface recordings.\nAs a step-up to ECG reconstruction, we aim to first solve the inverse problem for intracardiac electrograms (iEGM). From measurements with electrodes on the inner cardiac surface (endocardium), we seek to infer the 4D wave pattern inside the myocardial wall using physics-based inversion methods.\nCover image source: Griffin Health\n","date":"2022-06-17T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/data-analysis-and-inversion/cover_hu2032875495376846121.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/data-analysis-and-inversion/","title":"Data analysis and inversion"},{"content":"Numerical modeling of arrhythmias We have our own written C++-OpenMPI software, called Ithildin, to perform cardiac simulations using different geometries for the heart tissue. For electrogram simulations, we use the open cardiac electrophysiology simulator for in-silico experiments openCARP[1].\nWith these tools, we can perform a large variety of simulations to study different aspects of cardiac arrhythmias. In forward modeling, we seek quantitative predictions of pattern evolution and electrogram shapes.\n[1] Plank, G., Loewe A., Neic. A et al. (2021). The openCARP simulation environment for cardiac electrophysiology. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 2021;208:106223. doi:10.1016/j.cmpb.2021.106223 *[2] Kabus D, Cloet M, Zemlin C, Bernus O, Dierckx H (2024). The Ithildin library for efficient numerical solution of anisotropic reaction-diffusion problems in excitable media. PLoS ONE 19(9): e0303674. [https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303674] (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303674)\nYour browser doesn't support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead. Modeling the cardiac electrogram Despite its widespread use, there are still fundamental insights lacking on how substrate parameters affect intracardiac electrograms, and which information can be inferred from electrogram recordings. For this, we are collaborating with A.P. Panfilov (Ghent University) and K. Zeppenfeld (University of Leiden) and P. Claus (KU Leuven).\nCreation of individual models from machine learning Mathematical models of heart function have been historically derived from detailed measurements of currents across the cell membrane. When applying the resulting model to a patient, it is silently assumed that the original model describes also the excitation properties of that person. As an alternative, we use machine learning methods to mimic this entire process and directly learn from recordings taken at the tissue scale in a specific heart.\nYour browser doesn't support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead. ","date":"2022-06-17T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/towards-a-digital-twin-of-the-heart/cover_hu17055815860376937516.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/towards-a-digital-twin-of-the-heart/","title":"Towards a digital twin of the heart"},{"content":" ","date":"2022-06-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/06/01/experiments-in-the-gasthuisberg-hospital/1_hu14447637950881500263.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/06/01/experiments-in-the-gasthuisberg-hospital/","title":"Experiments in the Gasthuisberg hospital"},{"content":"Desmond is doing a joint PhD with LUMC in Leiden. Louise joined him for two days and visited the lab there! There, she could see the very thin slab of cardiac cell cultures and how they are contracting while electrical pulses were passing through them. A very exciting and interesting visit! We hope to go there soon to visit Desmond and the lab there with the entire team!\n","date":"2022-04-07T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/04/07/lab-visit-in-leiden/cover_hu10249213058634967512.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/04/07/lab-visit-in-leiden/","title":"Lab visit in Leiden"},{"content":"Desmond Kabus and Lore Leenknegt have presented e-posters at the EHRA conference in Copenhagen in April!\nDesmond showed how to reliably detect phase defect lines in the centres of spiral waves. These lines can be used to get additional information about the electrical properties of heart muscle tissue. Lore presented on the effect of the wall thickness on the properties of the electrogram signal and how this can be analytically approximated.\nLuckily, Nathan and Louise joined them at the conference, making it a very interesting, educational and fun experience!\n","date":"2022-04-05T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/04/05/ehra-conference-2022/cover_hu4432649607185744861.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/04/05/ehra-conference-2022/","title":"EHRA conference 2022"},{"content":" Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead. Project by Judith Verdonck The electrical waves controlling the heart beat behave much like forest fires, just on completely different time scales. Video by Judith Verdonck for her graduation project at Digital Arts and Entertainment:\nProject by Robbe Casier If trees would regrow faster, forest fires could travel in never-ending spiral waves. Terrifying! This is much like spiral waves that form in the heart during cardiac arrhythmias. Video by Robbe Casier for his graduation project at Digital Arts and Entertainment:\n","date":"2022-03-31T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/03/31/dae-meets-heartkor-and-kulak/cover_hu13352405201648210976.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/03/31/dae-meets-heartkor-and-kulak/","title":"DAE meets HeartKOR and KULAK"},{"content":"This month, the online lectures of junior college are published! Prof. Hans Dierckx, teamleader of heartKOR gave a lecture on cardiac arrhythmias and how this very hot and relevant research area needs mathematics and physics! Check out this lecture here.\nThis is an initiative that allows students in third grade to check out different subjects and get acquainted with scientific research and teaching style.\nCheck out this lecture here. Read more about the event here. ","date":"2022-03-03T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/03/03/junior-college-2022/cover_hu2205304809683491529.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/03/03/junior-college-2022/","title":"Junior College 2022"},{"content":" Promotors: Hans Dierckx, Piet Claus Supervisors: Lore Leenknegt, Dylan Vermoortele Subject: The inverse problem of the electrogram Studied Biophysics Year 2021-2022 ","date":"2022-03-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/brecht-vandenborre/cover_hu4974243085448100959.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/brecht-vandenborre/","title":"Brecht Vandenborre"},{"content":"","date":"2022-02-02T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/02/02/group-photo-at-the-kulak-orchard/group_hu10417735084529383188.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/02/02/group-photo-at-the-kulak-orchard/","title":"Group photo at the KULAK orchard"},{"content":"","date":"2022-01-20T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/01/20/group-photo-at-the-kortrijk-christmas-market/group_hu5033963354231353917.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2022/01/20/group-photo-at-the-kortrijk-christmas-market/","title":"Group photo at the Kortrijk Christmas market"},{"content":"Tell me more\u0026hellip;\n","date":"2021-11-03T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/11/03/childrens-university/0_hu11313605794101738450.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/11/03/childrens-university/","title":"Children's university"},{"content":"","date":"2021-10-14T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/10/14/group-photo-before-the-university-trail/group_hu3210450091251908474.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/10/14/group-photo-before-the-university-trail/","title":"Group photo before the University Trail"},{"content":"","date":"2021-09-28T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/09/28/group-photo-at-the-staff-party-2021/group_hu13473568193311910932.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/09/28/group-photo-at-the-staff-party-2021/","title":"Group photo at the staff party 2021"},{"content":"More about this event\u0026hellip;\n","date":"2021-09-15T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/09/15/research-day/cover_hu9178428568071429522.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/09/15/research-day/","title":"Research Day"},{"content":"Link to Article\n","date":"2021-03-03T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/03/03/can-we-solve-heart-problems-with-math/dierckx_hu12456303610288767839.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/2021/03/03/can-we-solve-heart-problems-with-math/","title":"Can we solve heart problems with math?"},{"content":"Contact Details 📌 Office A330, Etienne Sabbelaan 53, 8500 Kortrijk 📧 Look up email address on KU Leuven Who\u0026rsquo;s Who 📚 Publications via Lirias 📑 Publications via ORCID 🌍 Personal website 🌍 Profile on LinkedIn Questions and answers What did you study for your bachelor\u0026rsquo;s and master\u0026rsquo;s degree? For my B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees, I studied theoretical physics at the Institute for Computational Plasma Physics at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. In terms of equations, modelling a plasma and the electrical patterns in the heart have a surprising amount of similarity! Lots of methods that can therefore transferred between those two subjects. My research for my master\u0026rsquo;s thesis was focused on a simplified version of the inverse problem of electrocardiography. In simpler terms, I used mathematics to find where certain conduction defects are located in idealised heart muscle tissue from electrical measurements inside the heart chambers. For this, I used optimisation strategies from both machine learning and the more classical mathematical approaches, such as the adjoint state method.\nWhy did you choose to do a PhD in this group? Since I already got to know and love cardiology in my previous studies, it was a natural next step to look for PhD positions in the field. When I then saw the vacancy and figured out that I had already quoted some of the people involved in this project back in my Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s thesis, I knew that I found the group where I fit in perfectly.\nWhat would you say is your speciality within the research group? The technical nitty-gritty: algorithms, machine learning, and programming with C, C++, Python, etc. on GNU/Linux. All of this of course applied to the heart! To me it is exciting see how close I can push a computer to its limits for solving the challenging problems popping up everywhere in cardiology.\nWhat is your favorite part of doing a PhD? I love that I get to on the one hand explore the mathematics of cardiac electrophysiology with Hans Dierckx\u0026rsquo; group at KU Leuven and on the other hand get to experience the cutting edge of its experimental side at the Laboratory of Cardiology with Daniël Pijnappels at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.\nWhat is your least favorite part? Checking your simulation that already ran for hours, realising that it failed, and therefore having to start from scratch...\nWhat are your hobbies/after work activities? I like many things such as travelling, video games and water sports. I especially love sailing in all places; lakes, canals and of course the sea! In my spare time, I sometimes even work as a sailing instructor. I like to combine the work trips for my doctorate research with exploring the places they take me.\nDo you have a fun fact about yourself that you want to share? At the moment when I decided that I want to do a PhD, I was picking blueberries in New Zealand\u0026rsquo;s Far North.\n","date":"2021-02-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/desmond-kabus/cover_hu5278959611997006466.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/desmond-kabus/","title":"Desmond Kabus"},{"content":"Contact details 🌍 Profile on LinkedIn 📚 Publications via Lirias 📑 Publications via ORCID Questions and answers What did you study for your bachelor\u0026rsquo;s and master\u0026rsquo;s degree? First I obtained a bachelor in Physics, after which I started a master in Biophysics. I realized I really like combining the theoretical concepts of physics and computational methods with a more applied area like biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, medicine, \u0026hellip;\nWhy did you choose to do a PhD in this group? As said before, my interests and studies lie within the broad field of biophysics. With the research topics in this group, knowledge and skills from different disciplines are combined. This variability is something I greatly enjoy, as well as the opportunity to use computational skills in scientific research. I also very much like the fact that in an indirect way, my research could end up helping people suffer less.\nWhat would you say is your speciality within the research group? The study of cardiac electrograms. How the tissue properties and catheter orientations affect the shape and size of these signals.\nWhat is your favorite part of doing a PhD? The variation. It is very non-repetitive and I really enjoy the enthusiasm rush I get from closing in on a nice scientific result.\nWhat is your least favorite part? Scanning literature\u0026hellip;\nWhat are your hobbies/after work activities? One of my favorite activities is dancing. More specifically hiphop and couples dancing. Besides that, I love taking care of my pets (especially training my very young dog) and having quality time with special people in my life.\nDo you have a fun fact about yourself that you want to share? I talk a lot and pretty fast and use absurd humor in situations where I am uncomfortable.\n","date":"2020-08-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/lore-leenknegt/cover_hu10666327112071268599.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/lore-leenknegt/","title":"Lore Leenknegt"},{"content":"Contact details 🌍 Profile on LinkedIn 📚 Publications via Lirias 📑 Publications via ORCID Questions and answers What did you study for your bachelor\u0026rsquo;s and master\u0026rsquo;s degree? I studied mathematics at Ghent University. During my masters, I focussed on differential geometry and the application of this research onto theoretical physics. My favourite courses were quantum field theory, differential geometry 2 and writing my master thesis.\nWhy did you choose to do a PhD in this group? When I was 18 years old, I doubted a lot what to study next. \u0026lsquo;Should I go for medicine, engineering or mathematics?\u0026rsquo; was a question I have asked a million people! My passion for mathematics made the decision for me. But to be honest, at the end of my master degree, I was on the verge of starting med school. Being of social value is important to me. But then\u0026hellip;this team came across my path. It was THE perfect opportunity to combine my studies with my interest in medicine.\nWhat would you say is your speciality within the research group? I have always been intrigued by the somehow creative process a mathematician tries to tackle a difficult problem. This way of problem solving is the most important skill my degree has given me and is, I would say, my speciality. \u0026lsquo;Analytical thinking\u0026rsquo; is a process: translating a universal problem, like cardiac arrhythmias, to mathematics, (partially) solving the problem by using different techniques, to then translate the solution, like the theory of PDs, back to the \u0026lsquo;real\u0026rsquo; world. Being able to practice this skill on one of the largest causes of death worldwide makes me a happy person.\nWhat is your favorite part of doing a PhD? For my day-to-day life, I would say: diversity! Of course, we do research every day, but we also have to teach, follow courses (also transferable skills) and communicate our research via conferences or events like day of science or children\u0026rsquo;s day at the uni.\nOverall? The fact you learn so much about so many things (including yourself) is priceless.\nWhat is your least favorite part? A colleague once told me \u0026lsquo;A PhD is a marathon, not a sprint!\u0026rsquo;. Since I am a long-distance runner, it is quite ironic how hard this long-term process can be. Yes, I do believe a PhD is a long-term process, with lots of long-term management, sometimes with no results. Since I am a result-based person, a PhD is not only a process and marathon, it can also be a rollercoaster.\nWhat are your hobbies/after work activities? Besides long-distance running, I love to eat! Gourmet dining with friends, and colleagues of course, is one of my favourite activities. My friends also call me a professional conversation maker.\nDo you have a fun fact about yourself that you want to share? My eyes have a different colour (see picture).\n","date":"2020-06-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/louise-arno/cover_hu1420761606490280837.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/louise-arno/","title":"Louise Arno"},{"content":"Welcome to my group page!\nSince 2006 I am researching non-linear waves and emergent phenomena using techniques from mathematical physics. The main motivation for this comes from cardiac arrhythmias, where self-organizing vortices underly rhythm disorders. This is a major health challenge, see this chart of the World Health Organization.\nFrom 2019-2024 I worked as Assistant Professor at KU Leuven at the Kortrijk Campus.\nSince 2025 I am Associate professor at the Leiden University Medical Center. Our mission is to help cardiologists to better understand and visualize the complex spatiotemporal activation patterns in the heart.\nWe have different methods in our toolkit, ranging from theory (topology, differential geometry, perturbation theory) over numerical methods (forward and inverse modeling) to recent work on clinical data analysis and machine learning. But the most exciting is to combine all of these, enabling the creation of a physics-based cardiac digital twin!\nFeel free to contact me, we are open to collaboration.\nContact details 📌 LUMC, Albinusdreef 2, ZA 2333 Leiden. Office D4-26G. 📧 Official LUMC webpage #- 📚 Publications via Lirias 📑 Publications via ORCID #- 🧑‍🏫 Link educational tasks 🌍 Profile on LinkedIn Questions and answers What did you study for you bachelor's and master's degree? I have a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Applied Physics Engineering (NL: burgerlijk natuurkundig ingenieur) and a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics.\nWhat was your PhD about? Applying elements of string theory to the heart, in order to derive the laws of motion of rotor filaments in the anisotropic cardiac wall. A pdf version of my thesis is available here.\nWhat would you say is your speciality research wise? Geometric thinking on emergent patterns in the heart.\nWhy did you choose to become a Professor? My research is my way to make a difference for science and for society. I deliberately chose a topic with implicit benefits for the public (patients).\nWhat is your favourite part about being a research team leader? To have my ideas multiplied among my students, and the work divided. To have the aha experience with every little or larger scientific discovery. To spread the word that math and physics are much wider applicable than is usually assumed.\nWhat is your least favourite part about being a research team leader? Having to choose between a myriad of possibilities to do interesting science.\nWhat are your hobbies/after work activities? Spending time with my wife and three wonderful kids.\nDo you have a fun fact about yourself that you want to share? No, you'll have to meet me in person for that.\n","date":"2020-01-01T00:00:00Z","image":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/hans-dierckx/cover_hu15643848793066559317.jpg","permalink":"https://hansdierckx.gitlab.io/hans-dierckx/","title":"Hans Dierckx"}]