Jacques Beaumont

Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director, Department of Bioengineering

Research Interests: Modeling of living systems with special emphasis on the heart.
607-777-5280
beaumont@binghamton.edu
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Research Focus

Problem: Over an average life time the human heart contracts about 3 Billion times. Beat after beat, the heart performs its function despite numerous disturbances. However, although robust to many perturbations, the heart remains fragile to specific ones. Understanding this problem is at the very basis of predicting the risk of incidence to life threatening arrhythmias. This is a complex problem which cannot be undertook solely on the basis of experimentation.

Objective: Formulate noninvasive tests for the assessment of the risk of incidence to life threatening arrhythmias, and devise new therapeutic options for individuals at high risk.

Method: Elaborate a large scale computer model that allows reproducing, at high resolution and over scales ranging from cell to organ, the electrical activation of the heart. The heart model incorporates a mathematical representation of the: (1) kinetics of the membrane proteins governing the generation of electrical activity, (2) tissue microstructure, and (3) heart geometry. We simulate electrical activation in normal and arrhythmogenic conditions. Simulations are compared with experiments carried out in normal or genetically engineered: cells, pieces of muscle, or entire heart. Mathematical analysis of the computer simulations guide new experiments. In brief, the computer model provides means to capitalize on the genome, medical imaging technology, and fluorescent probes, to elucidate the mechanisms of initiation of arrhythmias.

Results: We have put in place technology to: i)analyze bioelectric signals, ii) reconstruct hearts from multiple medical imaging modalities, iii) represent the microstructure of heart tissue, iv) mesh the resulting geometric model, and v) simulate impulse propagation on massively parallel computers.

At this time we are more specifically interested in two problems. The first one is the anchoring of scroll of electrical waves. When anchored scroll of electrical waves may revolve at high frequencies and become the source of irregular electrical activations at the origin of fatal arrhythmias. The second problem is the generation of abnormal beats produced by local reexcitations in a context of cardiac gene mutations. Such abnormal beat may induce scroll waves and fatal arrhythmias. Phenomena involved are complex because they span scales ranging from a single protein to the entire heart. Our simulations of impulse propagation in the heart have provide invaluable insights on the underlying mechanisms.

Education

• Ph.D. - Biomedical Engineering, University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 1992
• M.S. - Physics, Laval University, Quebec, Canada, 1985
• B.S. - Engineering Physics, Laval University, Quebec, Canada, 1982

Positions Held

• 2006-pressent: Associate professor, Department of Bioengineering, SUNY at Binghamton.
• 2005-2006: Assistant professor, Department of Radiology, Upstate Medical University of SUNY, Syracuse NY
• 2000-pressent: Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Bioengineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse NY.
• 1999-2005: Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Upstate Medical University, of SUNY, Syracuse, NY.
• 1994-1999: Research Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Upstate medical University of SUNY Syracuse, NY.
• 1993-1994: Senior Research Scientist, department of Pharmacology, Upstate Medical University of SUNY, Syracuse, NY.
• 1992-1993: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Pharmacology, Upstate Medical University of SUNY, Syracuse, NY.
• 1988-1992: Graduate Student Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada.
• 1987-1988: Clinical Engineer. Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Montreal Canada.
• 1984-1987: Consultant in Computer Sciences, DMR, Montreal and Quebec city, Canada.

Member of the Following Professional Societies

• Biophysical Society
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
• North American Society for Pacing and Electrophysiology

Awards

• Mentor of Gregory Hoofnagle, an undergraduate Bioengineering student of Syracuse University which received the Bioengineering Founder award for a research project I supervised. 2005.
• Funded by the National Partnership for Advance Computational Infrastructure 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000.
• Mentor of Andrew Goodwin, an undergraduate Bioengineering student of Syracuse University which was awarded the Syracuse University Scholar. April 2000.
• American Heart Association, New York Affiliate, Inc. and Upstate New York Cardiac Electrophysiology Society. Gordon K. Moe Young Investigator Award. October 1994.

Patents for Algorithms

• Invention number R1402-110. Parameter estimation of the Hodgkin-Huxley gating model: An inversion procedure. Beaumont J., Wang G.J.
• Invention number R1499-110. Laplace-Dirichlet energy field specification for deformable models. An FEM approach to active contour fitting.

Member of the Following Study Sections

• NSF Biomedical Engineering and Research to Aid Persons with Disabilities, 2001,2002, 2004, and 2005.
• National academy of sciences, International collaboration program, 2003
• NSF Departmental Reform, April 2004
• The Health Research Council of New Zeland, 2005
• NSF International Research Fellow Awards, 2006

Reviewer for the Following Journals

• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Biophysical Journal
• Annals of Biomedical Engineering
• IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
• Bioelectromagnetism
• Circulation Research
• American Journal of Physiology

Grant Support History

• Hendrix Funds. Computer model of genetically induced phase II reentry in the human heart
  Total direct costs: $50,000
  Role: Principal investigator
  Period of support: 04/01/06 to 03/31/06
• National Institute of Health. Program Project: PO1-HL-39707.
  Intercellular communication and impulse propagation. May 1995 to April 2000
  Core B: Computer and electronic core
  Total Direct Costs: $571,857
  Role: Director of the computer and electronic core.
  Project III. Nonlinear dynamics of propagation in two-dimensional cardiac tissue.
  Total Direct Costs $727,450
  Role: Collaborating investigator
• National Institute of Health. Program Project: PO1-HL-39707.
  Intercellular communication and impulse propagation. May 2000 to April 2003.
  Core B: Computer and electronic core
  Total Direct Costs $914,423
  Role: Director of the computer and electronic core.
  Project II. Role of membrane current kinetics in dynamics of vortex-like reentry.
  Total Direct Costs: $817,238
  Role: Principal investigator
• Whitaker Foundation. Biomedical Engineering Research Grant. Computer modeling of spiral wave activity: Ionic mechanism leading to termination. April 1999 to October 2001
  Total direct costs: $203,433
  Role: Principal investigator
• National Institute of Health. Share Instrumentation Grant Program, application 1 s10 RR12917-01A1. Computer modeling of propagation in the heart.
  Total direct costs: $396,561.
  Role: Principal investigator

Peer Reviewed Publications

• Beaumont, J., Roberge, F.A. and Leon, L.J. On the interpretation of patch-clamp data using the Hodgkin-Huxley model. Math. Biosci. 115:65-101, 1993.
• Beaumont, J., Roberge, F.A. and Lemieux, D.R. Estimation of the steady-state characteristics of the Hodgkin-Huxley model from patch clamp data. Math. Biosci. 115: 145-186, 1993.
• Beaumont, J., Michaels, D., Delmar, M., Davidenko, J.M. and Jalife, J. A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268 (Heart Circ. Physiol.) 37:H1-H14, 1995.
• Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M. and Jalife, J. Self-Sustaining spiral wave activity in a two-dimensional ionic model of cardiac ventricular muscle. Computer Simulations in Biomedecine. Power H., Hart R.T., Computational Mechanics Publications Southampton and Boston. 75-87, 1995.
• Davidenko, J.M., Delmar, M., Beaumont, J., Michaels, D. and Jalife, J. Electrotonic inhibition and active facilitation of excitability in ventricular muscle. J. Cardiovasc. Electr. 5,11, 945-960, 1994.
• Meijler, F.L., Jalife, J., Beaumont, J. and Vaidya, D. AV nodal function during atrial fibrillation: the role of electrotonic modulation of propagation. J. Cardiovasc. Electr. 7(9):843-861; 1996
• Beaumont, J., Davidenko N., Davidenko, J.M. and Jalife, J. Spiral waves in a two-dimensional model of ventricular muscle: Formation of a stationary core. Biophys. J. 75:1-14; 1998
• Beaumont J. and Jalife J. Rotors and spiral waves in two-dimensions. In: Cardiac Electrophysiology; from cell to bedside, third edition. Zipes D. and Jalife J. Chap 38. 2000:327-335.
• Samie, F.H., Mandapati, R., Gray, R.A., Watanabe, Y., Zuur, C., Beaumont, J. and Jalife, J. A Mechanism of transition from ventricular fibrillation to tachycardia: Effect of calcium channel blockade on the dynamics of rotating waves. Circ. Res. 2000:86:684-691.
• Samie, H. F., Berenfeld, O., Anumonwo, J., Mironov, S., Udassi, S., Beaumont, J., Taffet, S., Pertsov, A.M. and Jalife, J. Rectification of the background potassium current: a determinant of rotor dynamics in ventricular fibrillation. Circulation Research 2001;89:1216-1223 (This paper made the cover page).
• Wang G.J., Beaumont J. Parameter estimation of the Hodgkin-Huxley gating model: An inversion procedure. SIAM J. Appl. Math. 2004:64(4):1249-1267
• Bayer J.D., Beaumont J., Krol A. Laplace-Dirichlet energy field specification for deformable models. An FEM approach to active contour fitting. Ann. of Biomed. Engn. 2005;33(9):1175-1186
• Slamani A., Krol A., Beaumont J., Price R.L., Coman I.L., Lipson E.D. Application of phase correlation to 3D reconstruction of large tissue volumes from scanning laser confocal microscopy. Microscopy and Microanalysis 2006:12(2):106-112.
• Beaumont J., Wang G.J., Krol A., Feiglin D. Inversion of Deterministic Markov Processes. I. Treatment of the Chain. SIAM J. Appl. Math. In review.
• Beaumont J., Wang G.J., Krol A., Feiglin D. Inversion of Deterministic Markov Processes. II. Treatment of the tree and loop configurations. SIAM J. Appl. Math. In review