Associate Professor of Vascular Surgery, University of Crete School of Medicine
University of Crete
Nikolaos Kontopodis
- 1 What is your research about?
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Our research studies how blood flows through blood vessels and how this flow is affected by vascular diseases, such as aneurysms and peripheral arterial disease. Using medical imaging and modern computational methods, we create 3D models of vessels and simulate blood flow, with the aim of better understanding the disease and treatments.
- 2 Why is it important?
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This research can help us better understand why vascular diseases develop and progress and how blood circulation is affected. In the long term, a better understanding of the disease can contribute to earlier identification of high-risk patients and the development of more personalized and effective treatments.
- 3 What inspired you to pursue this path?
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We were inspired by the need to better understand what is happening inside the blood vessels beyond what we can see with a simple, static image. The circulatory system is a living and dynamic part of the body that requires a combination of clinical experience with technology, engineering and computational science to study. This, of course, can only be done through the collaboration of many scientists from different scientific fields.
- 4 What do you like most about research?
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We love the process of discovery: taking a complex clinical problem and seeing it from a different perspective. It is particularly exciting to transform a simple medical image into a “living” model of circulation and discover information that is not immediately visible. Of course, the fact that this research combines medicine with technology and collaboration between different scientific fields makes it even more interesting.
- 5 What advice would you give to a child who loves science?
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To always remain curious and not be afraid to ask questions. Science often starts with a simple “why?” and the desire to discover what lies behind what we see. To experiment, to make mistakes and not be disappointed, because many times through mistakes we learn more.
- 6 Fun fact: Tell us something about yourself that not many people know.
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In our team, we spend much more time treating real patients than simulating blood flow on computers! Clinical routines often limit the time we can dedicate to research, but it is precisely clinical problems that give us the most research ideas.
