SIMCor Kick-off Meeting

On 14-15 January 2021, the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin is holding the kick-off e-meeting of a new EU-funded research project, SIMCor (In-Silico testing and validation of Cardiovascular IMplantable devices). The project is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 program, with official starting date 1 January 2021.

SIMCor aims to establish a computational platform for in-silico development, validation and regulatory approval of cardiovascular implantable devices as an open resource for collaborative R&D among cardiovascular device manufacturers, researchers, medical authorities and regulatory bodies. The platform will support in-silico device testing along the entire development chain: from in-silico modelling and in-vitro experiments to virtual animal and clinical studies.

The process chain of SIMCor will be exemplarily applied to two representative cardiovascular device use cases: transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and pulmonary artery pressure sensors (PAPS), based on their large potential socio-economic impact, the wide range of pathophysiologic conditions and biomechanical properties involved. Based on the developed pipeline, requirements and proof-of-validation results for these two use cases, SIMCor will extrapolate a series of best practices that, through a strict collaboration with regulatory authorities, clinicians and industry developers obtained through dedicated Advisory Boards, workshops and other engagement initiatives, will be translated into standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the entire cardiovascular device manufacturing community.