Interventional multiparametric MRI for myocardial infarction fingerprinting

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Michael Bock; Privatdozent Dr. Alexander Maier
• Subject Area: Medical Physics, Biomedical Technology ; Cardiology, Angiology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 566159812

Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the main causes of death and long-term disability. So far, autopsy studies and blood bio¬mar¬kers have proven insufficient to fully capture the disease status. Newer sequencing methods could map the heart after MI; however, without spatial and temporal correlation with in vivo imaging, these alterations cannot be directly connected with clinical diagnostic findings. More importantly, very early re-perfused myocardium was neither analysed by sequencing nor connected with MRI image signatures. As the evolution of post-MI remodelling is a continuous process, there is a huge interest in disease characteri¬zation with a high temporal resolution to gain insights into the evolution of the acute and subacute phases of MI. Characterization by imaging along with biomarker- and tissue-based assessments might provide refinements of the current classifications and definitions of MI and could lay the groundwork for development of new, injury stage-specific and tissue pathology-based cardioprotective therapies. This project aims to correlate in vivo MRI information with (sub-)cellular data in a longitudinal setting creating molecular fingerprints of MI lesions in a translational pig model. We hypothesise that interventional multiparametric MRI can uncover the evolution of the acute and subacute phases of MI with high temporal resolution and connect imaging signatures with molecular fingerprints derived from histology and transcriptomics. In the first part of the project the technical methods will be established to perform intra- and extracardiac high-resolution diffusion-weighted (DWI) MRI and hetero-nuclear (1H/19F) MRI during MRI-guided biopsy with a dedicated MR-compatible bioptome. The second part will focus on in vivo studies in pigs to investigate pathophysiological interactions in MI longitudinally with 1H/19F-MRI including multi¬colour 19F-MRI and DWI, to compare imaging signatures with histology and state-of-the-art sequencing molecular fingerprints derived from MRI-guided endomyocardial biopsies. In summary, this translational project will create the first bidirectional in and ex vivo dynamic map of myocardial infarction from a human-size pig model with an interventional MRI toolbox on the cusp of human translation. This work will enhance clinical MRI interpretation to a (sub-)cellular level opening the possibility to find new therapeutic targets for MI therapy.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants