Periodic Reporting for period 2 - 4DHeart (4D analysis of heart development and regeneration using advanced light microscopy)
Período documentado: 2019-01-01 hasta 2021-02-28
This EID training network strengthens on-going European academia-industry partnerships and provided innovative training to Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) at the intersection of the fields of biology, microscopy, optics and bio-computing. Through this consortium, we have been able to improve our knowledge on how a heart is formed and is able to regenerate upon injury.
The central focus of 4DHeart was to train experts on cardiovascular research through the use of live imaging. Light sheet Microscopy, high-throughput fluorescent light microscopy platforms, as well as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were used in combination with newly developed image processing and image quantification pipelines to decipher how a vertebrate heart is formed at the cellular level and monitor alterations of cardiac function with high accuracy. The supervisors of the training program were academic (CNIC, UBERN, IGBMC, CNRS) and industrial (Leica, BITPLANE; ACQUIFER/Ditabis) partners, experts on cardiovascular development, physics, bio-computing, optics, image analysis, screening platforms and big data handling.
They participated in various common training programs but also received tailored mentoring and training opportunities for their individual projects, that were highly complementary to each other. Through the exposure to this diverse work environments, the participation in a coherent network of academic institutions and enterprises, the diverse and purposely sought after soft-skill guided training transformed the trainees into capable, creative, entrepreneurial, and innovative researchers. They received a training that could allow then pursue an academic career and become future leaders in the field of cardiovascular imaging.
The overarching goal of 4DHeart was to use live imaging to gain insight into cardiac development in preclinical animal models (zebrafish, mouse and rabbit). Each ESR project was dealing with a specific project that had two main challenges: on the one hand we aimed to answer a meaningful biological question and on the other, to pioneer in novel imaging tools. The implementation has been done by achieving the following objectives:
Objective 1. Molecular control of the role of fluid flow forces on valve development.
Objective 2. Quantitative description of the role of fluid forces on epicardium development.
Objective 3. Comprehensive description of zebrafish valve development at cellular resolution.
Objective 4. Comprehensive description of early mouse heart development at cellular resolution.
Objective 5. Identification of compounds leading to epicardium activation.
Objective 6. Generation of novel MRI-based algorithms to track dynamic tissue changes in vivo.