The development of medical devices poses the exciting challenge of working across multiple engineering and clinical disciplines to advance technologies for alleviating pain, restoring health, and extending life. With this opportunity comes the need to advance modeling and simulation technologies to more richly and deeply characterize human anatomy and physiology and predict the interaction with the devices. An additional challenge is that the classes of devices significantly impacting patient’s health are surgically implanted and remain in the body for 10-15 years.

Given these complexities and challenges that push the envelope of mechanistic modeling, is the investment in modeling and simulation technology worth it? What are the factors that contribute to the decision to pursue a modeling and simulation solution in comparison to empirical forms of evidence? These questions will be addressed through the use of two case studies demonstrating business value of investment in modeling and simulation as well as the impact on patient care.

This webinar is the second in a series organised by the Business Impact Working Group.

About the Presenter

Mark Palmer, MD, PhD is a Distinguished Scientist in Strategic Scientific Operations at Medtronic, plc. He received his BS in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University. Subsequently, Dr. Palmer attended the University of Michigan where he received an MSE in Mechanical Engineering, MS in Biomedical Engineering ultimately completing the Medical Scientist Training Program with an MD and PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Following graduation, Dr. Palmer spent three years as an entrepreneur before returning to the University of Michigan as a faculty member with appointments in both Biomedical Engineering and Kinesiology collaborating with the Chair of Orthopedic Surgery.

In 2014, Dr Palmer was recruited to Medtronic where his current role within Corporate Core Technologies includes serving as an R&D Consultant and Technical Advisor for Medtronic Business Units world-wide, identifying and managing external collaborations, and leading the strategy and platform technologies for realistic human simulation. His expertise includes fully coupled multi-scale finite element modeling, large deformation tissue constitutive modeling, and clinical image-based modeling techniques. Dr. Palmer also leads the Enterprise-wide Working Group for Modeling and Simulation where he regularly reports to the R&D Council, Clinical Research Council, Executive Committee and the Board of Directors on the long-range R&T Strategy for Modeling & Simulation. Dr. Palmer holds 2 patents in computational modeling, has 12 publications on the application of modeling and simulation in leading Biomechanics, Physiology, and Orthopedic journals with over 400 citations, and he has served as an invited speaker or presenter at over 40 national and international conferences.