The cardiac microstructure in health and disease
In healthy hearts, the muscle cells are long and thin, and are tightly packed with their neighbours in an ordered pattern. This means that water molecules can travel more easily along the cells than across them. Professor Pennell and his team at Imperial College London are using a new type of heart scan called Diffusion Tensor Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (DT-CMR) to reveal new insights into how the alignment of these heart cells changes in heart disease by tracking water molecules as they bounce off the cell walls. This team will use DT-CMR to study the microscopic arrangement of heart cells in two groups of volunteers with heart conditions: those with inherited diseases of the heart muscle and those born with heart defects. They will study the changes in cell arrangement in these conditions, and look at whether changes in how the heart cells are arranged could help to predict outcomes in these conditions and response to treatment. The team also aim to develop ways to run these detailed scans faster, which is essential for transforming DT-CMR from a technique used in the laboratory, requiring hours of scanning and calculations, to a test that’s feasible for use in the NHS. This programme of research will show how heart cell arrangement is changed in two types of heart disease. And it will gather evidence to show how DT-CMR could contribute to the care and treatment of people with these diseases.
Project details
| Grant amount | £1,601,297 |
|---|---|
| Grant type | Chairs & Programme Grants |
| Application type | Programme Grant |
| Start Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Duration | 5 years |
| Reference | RG/19/1/34160 |
| Status | In Progress |
