Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Co-Director of the Biomedical Simulations Resource Center
Modeling of nonlinear and nonstationary physiological systems
Office: DRB 160
Phone: (213) 740-0841
Fax: (213) 740-0343
Email:
vzm@bmsr.usc.edu
Center Affiliations
Dr. Marmarelis is associated with the Biomedical Simulations Resource (BMSR), the Engineering Research Center on Biomimetic Electronic Systems (BMES) and the Center for Neural Engineering (CNE).
Background
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 before he joined the faculty of the Biomedical and Electrical Engineering Departments at USC in September 1978, where he is currently a Professor and 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. Dr. Marmarelis served as Chairman of the Biomedical Engineering Department from 1990 to 1996 and he is a Fellow of the IEEE and the AIMBE.
Research
Dr. Marmarelis' research interests are in the areas of system modeling and signal analysis with applications to physiology and medicine. The role and importance of dynamic nonlinearities and nonstationarities in physiological function underpin much of the research undertaken by Dr. Marmarelis and his graduate students. Of particular interest are the “exotic” problems of nonlinear and/or nonstationary physiological system modeling and of nonstationary and spatiotemporal analysis of biomedical signals. Areas of application include neural systems and neuro-prostheses, multi-unit information processing and coding in the nervous system, and cardio-vascular and metabolic-endocrine autoregulation. Recent projects have dealt with the questions of nonlinear modeling of multi-unit neuronal ensembles, cortical neuro-prostheses, nonlinear neuro-motor control, nonlinear feedback in physiological systems, cerebral blood-flow autoregulation, and the dynamic interrelationships between insulin, glucose and free fatty acids. Associated with the latter is the fundamental issue of nested-loop autoregulation in human physiology. A key methodological innovation is the use of Principal Dynamic Modes for modeling nonlinear dynamic systems in order to discover and understand the physiological mechanisms that subserve the function of the nervous, the cardio-vascular and the metabolic-endocrine systems.
Dr. Marmarelis’ seminal contributions to nonlinear modeling of physiological systems were first reported in the pioneering monograph that he co-authored with his brother Panos in 1978 (also translated in Russian and Chinese) and recently presented in his comprehensive monograph “Nonlinear Dynamic Modeling of Physiological Systems” (2004). He has also edited three research volumes (1987, 1989, 1994) and has published more than 100 journal papers and book chapters on this and related subjects.
Dr. Marmarelis and his graduate students utilize in their research the extensive computing facilities of the BMSR. Experimental data are collected in collaboration with research groups within the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the USC School of Medicine and collaborating laboratories in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Over the last 8 years, Dr. Marmarelis has also developed and tested a novel imaging technology that utilizes ultrasonic transmission tomography to generate high-resolution 3D images with initial application to the early detection of breast cancer. This imaging technology (termed HUTT: High-resolution Ultrasonic Transmission Tomography) has a unique tissue-characterization capability that may have significant clinical impact. It is currently undergoing initial clinical trials in Europe.
