Team: Nikita Bhatia, Geena Kim, Ashna Mangla, Michael Yang

Client: Mark Ratcliffe, MD., Professor of Medicine, Surgery, UCSF, and Vicky Wang, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar at UCSF

Heart failure is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. MRI is capable of tracking 3D in-vivo cardiac motion using the Displacement Encoding via Stimulated Echoes (DENSE) algorithm, which is a method to extract myocardial motion data by quantifying strain and displacement of the heart. In order to accurately assess changes in contractility of the heart due to heart failure, the DENSE algorithm is calibrated using a cylindrical silicone gel phantom. However, current versions of this cardiac gel phantom do not perform the left ventricular twist motion of the heart. 

Our top unmet need is to artificially generate cardiac motion signals for MRI DENSE algorithm for adult patients with heart failure in order to accurately assess heart failure mechanics and design devices that treat heart failure.