MIE’s Yossi Chait Receives Appointment to the UMass Chan Medical School in the Department of Medicine

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Yossi Chait

Yossi Chait, a professor in the UMass Amherst Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) Department and an adjunct in the Biomedical Engineering Department, has been appointed as an adjunct professor in the Department of Medicine of the UMass Chan Medical School (UMass Chan). UMass Chan is a “national leader in the delivery of innovative and high-quality patient care, educational programs, and in transformative basic and clinical research,” as its website notes.

Chait’s appointment reflects his significant contributions to biomedical research across various clinical projects. He co-directs Control in Biomedical Systems Research Laboratory, which focuses on developing feedback-control methods for biomedical applications. As Chait explains, his research intersects engineering, mathematics, and medicine.

Chait's work primarily addresses chronic kidney disease using an integrated approach that combines biomedical engineering, clinical nephrology, mathematical modeling, feedback systems, artificial intelligence, and cloud-based solutions to improve treatments. His research has led to advancements such as more accurate blood-volume estimates and improved fluid management in hemodialysis, optimized dosing algorithms for anemia, and personalized hypertension management through non-invasive bioimpedance cardiography.

For example, Chait, Christopher Hollot, the outgoing head of the UMass Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and Joseph Horowitz, a professor emeritus in the Mathematics and Statistics Department, belong to a seven-person, interdisciplinary team of researchers that recently received a U.S. patent for a revolutionary technique to estimate absolute blood volume during the dialysis process much more accurately than is currently possible. 

This patented new method can potentially solve the pressing need for a less-invasive and more-cost-effective method of calculating absolute blood volume and thus refining the hemodialysis process. In essence, Chait and his collaborators are replacing the current state-of-the-art method with a far-reaching new model which incorporates authentic physiological processes that are more complex than that used in the contemporary model. 

According to Chait and his fellow researchers, “Our team has pioneered a novel technique for accurately estimating absolute blood volume during dialysis, seamlessly integrating it into existing machine technology.” 

In another project, Chait is collaborating with Professor Jeungok Choi from the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing at UMass Amherst, along with local clinicians Dr. Michael Germain and Dr. Paul Pirraglia, chief of the Division of General Medicine and Community at Baystate Health. Their goal is to enhance hypertension management at the Baystate High Street Health Center, which primarily serves underrepresented populations in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the surrounding areas. 

The Chait/Choi team says that "Black and Hispanic Americans have significantly lower rates of blood-pressure control compared to White Americans, with these disparities often linked to systemic racial discrimination, socioeconomic inequity, and unequal access to healthcare services.

Additionally, in 2019, Chait co-chaired a national Kidney Health Initiative (KHI) working group to update the "Technology Roadmap for Innovative Approaches to Renal Replacement Therapy," aiming to advance fluid-management technologies and improve the quality of life for individuals with kidney failure.

These projects highlight just a fraction of Chait’s extensive research efforts throughout his career. (August 2024)