Dean's Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Education
- 1972, Bachelor's Degree, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens
Biography
Vasilis Z. Marmarelis received his diploma in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 1972 and his M.S. in Information Science and Ph.D. in Engineering Science (Bio-Information Systems) from the California Institute of Technology in 1973 and 1976, respectively. He was a Lecturer and Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology in BioInformation Systems from 1976 to 1978. In September 1978, he joined the faculty of the Biomedical and Electrical Engineering Departments at USC, where he is currently a Professor. Dr. Marmarelis served as Chairman of Biomedical Engineering from 1990 to 1996. He is also Co-Director of the Biomedical Simulations Resource (BMSR), a research center dedicated to modeling and simulation of physiological systems that has been funded by the National Institutes of Health through multi-million dollar grants since 1985.He co-authored the seminal book: Analysis of Physiological System: The White Noise Approach (Plenum, New York 1978; Russian translation, 1981; Chinese translation, 1990) and recently authored the monograph: Nonlinear Dynamic Modeling of Physiological Systems (Wiley-Interscience 2004). He has published more than a hundred journal papers and book chapters. In 2000, he invented the "Multimodal Ultrasound Tomography" system for the early detection of breast cancer, which has been recently validated clinically in the EU. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the AIMBE.
Research Summary
Dr. Marmarelis' research interests lie primarily in the areas of biomedical systems modeling and signal analysis with applications to physiology and medical diagnosis. Of particular interest are the problems of nonlinear modeling and closed-loop multi-variate systems. Areas of application include neural information processing and cardio-vascular autoregulation. Recent projects have dealt with the questions of nonlinear modeling of neuronal ensembles, neurostimulation, nonlinear physiological feedback, cerebral flow autoregulation, closed-loop control of blood glucose and novel diagnostic techniques for diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases. Prof. Marmarelis has pioneered the use of Principal Dynamic Modes for modeling nonlinear dynamic systems and improved clinical diagnosis. information processing by the nervous system.
Since he invented the "Multimodal Ultrasound Tomography" system for the early detection of breast cancer, some of his efforts are directed towards the clinical validation of this promising technology (currently validated in Europe) and its possible extension to other clinical applications, including biopsy assist, monitoring of adjuvant and neo-adjuvant therapy, improved diagnosis of osteoporosis, bone quality assessment, diagnostic imaging of ligaments and tendons, novel cardio-vascular and brain imaging methods, and novel interventional techniques using focused ultrasound.
Dr. Marmarelis and his graduate students utilize in their research the extensive computing facilities of the BMSR. Experimental data are collected in collaboration with other research groups, within the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Neuroscience Program, the USC School of Medicine and collaborating laboratories in the U.S. and Europe.
Awards
- 2005 Fellow of the IEEE
- - American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers Fellow
