Two Imperial groups celebrate success in heart science image contest - News
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by Sam Wong
Friday 17 June 2011
An animated representation of blood flow and a 3D reconstruction of a congenitally malformed heart have won prizes in the British Heart Foundation’s research image competition, Reflections of Research.
The BHF invited its funded scientists – from more than 1,200 projects – to submit the most exciting images and videos produced in the course of their work.
Streamlined
“Streamlined”, the winner in the movie category, shows a representation of blood flow in the aorta, created by Dr Anna Plata and colleagues, from the BHF Centre of Research Excellence at Imperial College London. Dr Peter Vincent, currently at Stanford University, helped to develop the initial models while studying for his PhD at Imperial.
They are using computational techniques to study how blood moves in the vessels and how certain characteristics of blood flow may be linked to the development of artery disease. The animation is the result of a strong collaborative effort between medical researchers, biologists and engineers.
The judging panel included Roger Highfield, Editor of New Scientist, and artist Brendan Neiland.
Looking for the source
A second group from the BHF Centre of Research Excellence at Imperial won the supporter favourite award, chosen in a poll of supporters on the BHF’s Facebook page. Their two-part entry, “Looking for the source”, shows the heart of a patient with congenital heart disease, whose heart has not developed normally. The heart has only one ventricle (which appears in pink); usually there are two.
The first video shows a 3D reconstruction of the whole heart, produced using cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging. Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan and her colleagues use CMR to provide an anatomical roadmap for electrophysiology procedures.
In the second video, some of the chambers have been masked. Electrical recordings are overlaid on top of the reconstruction to pinpoint the source of the patient’s abnormal heart rhythm. Dr Sabine Ernst uses magnets to guide a catheter through the blood vessels to reach the heart and treat the arrhythmia by burning areas of scar tissue in the heart.
All of the winning images and videos can be viewed online at bhf.org.uk/reflections
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