Advanced Blood Pressure Monitoring

Ramakrishna Mukkamala, PhD
Professor
Department of Bioengineering
University of Pittsburgh

Abstract:  Hypertension is a major, modifiable cardiovascular risk factor, yet strokes and heart attacks remain far too common. Advanced blood pressure monitoring technology could help alleviate these lethal and costly cardiovascular events. We present new methods to measure brachial cuff blood pressure with greater accuracy than widely used office devices; central blood pressure (i.e., blood pressure near the heart) using only a standard automatic arm cuff device; and blood pressure without a cuff using a bathroom weighing scale or smartphone. The cuff-based methods could potentially afford improved cardiovascular risk stratification, whereas the cuff-less methods could possibly enhance hypertension awareness and control.

Bio:  Ramakrishna Mukkamala is a Professor in the Departments of Bioengineering and Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh since June, 2020. Rama received graduate and post-doctoral training in Bioelectrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was on the Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty at Michigan State University for 18 years. He has been a dedicated cardiovascular bioengineering researcher throughout his career with specific interests in computational physiology, medical devices, mHealth, patient monitoring, physiologic sensors, and physiologic signal processing. He received an NSF CAREER Award and an AHA Scientist Development Grant for his early research on blood pressure waveform analysis and helped Retia Medical translate this research into a cardiac output monitor that is new being used at various hospitals in the nation. He received an IEEE EMBS Most Impactful Paper Award and the Michigan State University All-University Innovation of the Year Award in 2019 for his recent research on cuff-less blood pressure measurement. He is also a devoted educator with two teaching awards from MSU and now teaches Biological Signals and Systems at Pitt. In addition, Rama currently serves as the elected Chair of the IEEE EMBS Technical Committee on Cardiopulmonary Systems and Physiology-Based Engineering and as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.