Charles Puelz, an assistant professor of mathematics, has been awarded one of the 2025 Single Ventricle Research Fund Awards (SVRF). Puelz leads one of the 16 winning teams.
The SVRF award, from Additional Ventures, are multi-year grants to 鈥渟upport foundational science that is essential to laying the groundwork for targeted therapies and accelerating patient impact.鈥�
The award totals $658,000 and supports research to help individuals born with a single ventricle.
A Potentially Life-Saving Computer Model
Puelz began his research in computational medicine while in graduate school. When he arrived at UH, he continued existing collaborations in pediatric cardiology with Drs. Justin Weigand, Silvana Molossi, and Neil Cambronero, specialists at Texas Children鈥檚 Hospital. 鈥淚 have been working for some time with incredible medical doctors who specialize in treating patients with single ventricle disease,鈥� said Puelz. 鈥淭hey are interested in how to best optimize the surgical reconstruction of the aorta to improve outcomes for single ventricle patients.鈥� Another member of the team is Dr. Mette Olufsen from North Carolina State University. She is an expert in cardiovascular modeling, especially organ perfusion.
Puelz specializes in building computer models to help cardiologists. His physics-based modeling helps to study how blood moves through the heart and body, primarily in patients with congenital heart disease. 鈥淐omputer models allow you to predict how blood flows and how pressures change within a model circulation of a patient,鈥� said Puelz.
Doctors can use these approaches to test and develop ideas for new surgical techniques, especially those that are needed to reroute blood flow to help the child survive. 鈥淚n single ventricle disease, there鈥檚 typically not a way to surgically create a normal heart with two ventricles,鈥� said Puelz. 鈥淚nstead, surgeons redo the plumbing around the heart in a sequence of staged operations. They disconnect and connect vessels to eventually establish an abnormal circulation that works in harmony with the single ventricle.鈥� Puelz said the team is interested in using computer modeling to understand how some of these surgically reconstructed vessels affect blood flow after surgery.
鈥淭hese models have the chance to positively affect patient care鈥�
Puelz emphasized that these computational models are meant to provide additional insight to clinicians who are already skilled at treating patients. 鈥淲e are using computational approaches as an additional quantitative tool for doctors to improve care for patients with complex conditions, like those with congenital heart disease,鈥� said Puelz. 鈥淚t can help give clinicians more of a mechanistic understanding of their treatment plan.鈥�
The grant will fund a graduate student who will help Puelz with his research in the NSM mathematics department. UH is the lead award recipient, with Baylor College of Medicine and North Carolina State University collaborating on the research.