Speaker: Dr. Omer T. Inan

Abstract:
By 2030, the American Heart Association projects that 40% of Americans (150 million) will suffer from cardiovascular disease and the annual costs will approach $1 trillion. Cardiovascular monitoring at home could improve the quality of care and life for these millions of patients, and reduce healthcare costs for all Americans. Rather than reacting to catastrophic cardiac events such as heart attacks or strokes in the emergency room, care could be delivered proactively by tailoring treatment strategies to the changing needs of the patients. To accelerate this transition from reactive to proactive care, a new class of biomedical devices must be researched. These devices would leverage advances in embedded systems and sensor technology to achieve accurate and robust monitoring of clinically relevant parameters in the home.

This talk focuses primarily on one such device: a modified electronic weighing scale designed to monitor the electrical and mechanical health of the heart. With this scale, changes in bodyweight were measured resulting from the movement of blood throughout the vasculature, and specific features of this “ac” weight signal were mapped to key clinical markers of cardiovascular health. Subsequently, multiple clinical studies with healthy and diseased populations were conducted in collaboration with cardiologists in the Medical School and local clinics to demonstrate the efficacy of this device for home health monitoring.

Bio:
Omer T. Inan received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2004, 2005, and 2009, respectively. From 2009-2013, he continued at Stanford as Visiting Scholar in Electrical Engineering while working as chief engineer at Countryman Associates, a leading manufacturer of professional audio equipment. In August of 2013, he joined the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Inan has published nearly 30 technical articles in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences, is an inventor on three pending patents, and serves as an associate editor for the IEEE Journal on Biomedical and Health Informatics. From 1999-2004, he participated in track and field, and was a three-time NCAA All-American in the discus throw, co-captain of the Stanford University Track and Field Team, and was ranked top 20 in the world in his age group for three consecutive years.