Tammo Delhaas

Professor

Tammo Delhaas is Pediatric Cardiologist and Professor of Biomedical Engineering. He obtained his MD at the University of Groningen and received his PhD degree from Maastricht University in 1993 for a thesis on cardiac mechanics. After his training in Pediatrics in Maastricht and Utrecht, he received a Fulbright grant/ICIN-Fellowship and spent one year at the Departments of Bioengineering and Medicine from the UCSD. Thereafter, he trained in Pediatric Cardiology in Aachen and Melbourne. In 2000, he returned to Maastricht as Pediatric Cardiologist and continued his research on the crossroads of (Pediatric) Cardiology, Physiology and Biomedical Engineering. In 2009, he was appointed Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Maastricht University, where he is involved in projects related to cellular and cardiac mechanics, cardiac pacing, and mathematical modeling of the heart and circulation.

Prof. Tammo Delhaas is heading the CardioVascular System Dynamics Research Group (CVSDRG). With clinical questions regarding (congenital) heart diseases in mind, his research focusses on asynchronous electrical activation, vascular and myocardial structure-function relation, and computer model-assisted diagnosis and treatment of cardiac failure, pulmonary hypertension and congenital heart diseases. Besides standard expertise, CVSDRG uses following techniques/models in which it has expertise of extraordinary quality according to international standards: 1) CircAdapt, a lumped parameter mathematical model of the human heart and circulation that enables real-time simulation of cardiovascular system dynamics in a wide variety of physiological and pathophysiological situations (www.circadapt.org); 2) Finite Element Model of the heart with left and right ventricle, simulating local stress and strain as a function of time with emphasis on adaptation of wall anatomy to local mechanical load; 3) Pulse Wave Propagation and Computational Fluid Dynamics models that predict pressure and flow waveforms after vascular interventions, such as Arterio-Venous Fistula creation for hemodialysis. Prof. Tammo Delhaas serves as a reviewer or member of the editorial board of many journals, and has received grants from, amongst others, the Dutch Heart Foundation, Maastricht UMC+, Province of Limburg, NWO, European Research Council, and the Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands (ICIN).