He has introduced innovative ways to analyze and model physiological systems, adapting and developing concepts and methods from modern statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics and networks theory. He has investigated the complex dynamics and underlying control mechanisms of a range of physiological systems, including studies on cardiac and respiratory dynamics, sleep-stage transitions, circadian rhythms, locomotion and brain dynamics, and has uncovered basic laws of physiologic regulation.

Professor Ivanov has pioneered the study of dynamic network interactions of physiological and organ systems. He is the originator and founder of the interdisciplinary field of Network Physiology. His current work focuses on developing methods of data analysis to investigate interactions among diverse organ systems and build a theoretical framework to understand how physiologic states and functions at the organism level emerge out of organ network interactions, and how diverse organ systems coordinate and integrate their functions to produce health or disease. His work lays the foundation of the Human Physiolome, a new type of BigData, containing streams of continuously recorded, high frequency, synchronized physiological signals under various states and clinical conditions, with an associated Atlas of network maps representing interactions among physiological systems at different levels in the human organism.