About HeartVision
HeartVision is an ambitious high-risk, high-gain project that aims to unlockreal-time, in vivo 3D microscopy of beating hearts and engineered hearttissues (EHTs) at cell-scale resolution – even deep within tissue folds. It is funded by EU under its Horizon Europe program through EIC Pathfinder call of 2025. The EU link to the project is here.
Heart failure is the leading cause of death worldwide, and today, there isno curative therapy for it. EHT transplantation offers hope, but wecurrently lack tools to assess its effectiveness in real time. Criticalquestions remain unanswered: Where do transplanted cardiomyocytesgo? How do they integrate? When do they start contributing to heartfunction? Today, even imaging cells deep within therapy-scale EHTs is notpossible – let alone in a beating heart.
HeartVision will realize the dream of cell-scale imaging in living organsand put it in the hands of therapy developers, reshaping how we see,study, and treat heart failure and beyond.
Team
Krishna Agarwal
Professor, Department of Physics, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Coordinator, HeartVision project
Expertise: Inverse imaging, computational microscopy
Åsa Birna Birgisdottir
Associate Professor, Department of Clinical medicine, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Project leader, University Hospital of North Norway
Associate coordinator, HeartVision project
Expertise: Cardiovascular biology, mitochondrial function