Emilie Roncali was a Keynote Speaker at the Virtual Imaging Trials in Medicine Workshop 2026
April 2026 — Associate Director for Computational Biomedicine, Emilie Roncali recently gave a keynote on theranostics digital twins and in silico models at the Virtual Imaging Trials in Medicine workshop 2026. This was a two day online gathering of the Virtual Imaging Trials in Medicine Community for virtual discussions and scientific exchange in the world of in-silico trials, digital twins, and quantitative imaging.
In her talk, Roncali introduced core principles of theranostics digital twins, stressing the difference with in silico models. She discussed examples related to nuclear medicine and detailed some of her research on liver digital twins for liver cancer treatment that integrate computational fluid dynamics and radiation physics modeling to optimize treatment. She briefly discussed some ethical considerations to build diverse, equitable, and accessible digital twins.
Frederick Ha Presented at the 2026 Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities Conference
April 2026 — Frederick Ha first connected with the Center for Precision Medicine and Data Sciences in the summer of 2024 through the Avenue M Program, a community college-to-medical school pathway program housed at UC Davis School of Medicine. During the summer program, Frederick was introduced to cutting-edge areas of computational biomedicine, including protein structure modeling, therapeutic design, and health informatics.
After completing the summer program and transferring to UC Davis, Frederick continued his journey with the Center by conducting his own research under the supervision of Diego Lopez Mateos, Ph.D., in the Yarov-Yarovoy Lab. His work focused on developing novel in silico tools for the identification and selection of high-quality artificial de novo proteins for therapeutic applications, supporting multiple ongoing protein design projects in the lab.
Throughout this experience, Frederick successfully combined his research training with coursework and volunteer work at the UC Davis Health Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, gaining a broad and integrated perspective spanning basic molecular research, therapeutic development, and clinical practice.
Frederick’s time with the Center culminated in an outstanding presentation of his research at the 2026 Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities Conference in April 2026. Congratulations, Frederick! We are proud of your accomplishments and wish you the very best in your future endeavors!
Cellular mechanisms of radiation-induced myocyte dysfunction: effects on calcium handling, ion channel regulation and mitochondrial energetics
April 2026
Abstract
Ionizing radiation induces a range of cellular responses in cardiomyocytes that vary with the dose, duration of exposure and metabolic state. Although historically attributed to microvascular injury and fibrosis, radiation-induced cardiac dysfunction is now recognized to originate from direct perturbations of myocyte calcium handling, ion channel regulation and mitochondrial energetics. Low to moderate radiation doses generate sustained reactive oxygen species (ROS) that activate oxidation-dependent calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) signalling, leading to disrupted sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium cycling, altered sodium and calcium currents and increased susceptibility to early and delayed after-depolarizations. Mitochondrial structural and energetic instability further amplifies ROS–CaMKII feedback, promoting a pro-arrhythmic electrophysiological substrate. High-dose radiation exposures, such as those used in cardiac stereotactic body radiotherapy, lead to a distinct electrical reprogramming phenotype characterized by coordinated upregulation of sodium channels, calcium channels, potassium channels and gap junction proteins. The resulting emergent effects are to enhance conduction velocity and electrical homogeneity that together provide a mechanistic explanation for the rapid anti-arrhythmic effects observed clinically, even independent of fibrosis. Across the radiation dose spectrum, the mitochondria serve as key integrators of redox stress and calcium overload, shaping the transition from reversible signalling alterations to persistent remodelling. This review synthesizes mechanistic patterns underlying radiation-induced myocyte dysfunction, highlights unresolved discrepancies across experimental models and discusses how computational modelling might be the ideal tool to predict optimal therapeutic radiation delivery while mitigating long-term cardiotoxicity.
Natural language processing of biomedical text to map and prioritize protein–disease associations in HFpEF
March 2026
Abstract
The validation of promising clinical biomarkers, molecular mechanisms, and novel drug targets in cardiovascular disease (CVD) is hindered by a vast and fragmented biomedical literature, which now exceeds 38 million publications indexed in PubMed. To address the central challenge of navigating and synthesizing a huge fragmented biomedical literature base, we applied our validated machine learning–based text-mining algorithm containing natural language processing (NLP) and incorporated this into a ValIdated Text-mining using Advanced Language model (VITAL) as a complementary framework.
Society welcomes inaugural Editors-in-Chief for The Journal of Precision Medicine: Health and Disease and The Journal of Nutritional Physiology
Following the announcement of The Physiological Society’s partnership with Elsevier to launch a new journal, we are delighted to introduce the Editor-in-Chief (Colleen E. Clancy) and Deputy Editor in Chief (Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy) of The Journal of Precision Medicine: Health and Disease.