The grant has been awarded for their contribution to "Multi Scale Systems Analysis of Metabolic and Mechanical Determinants of Reserve Cardiac Power Output", a joint research project (total budget US$ 3M) lead by Prof Daniel Beard, the Carl J. Wiggers Collegiate Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology at the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The funding is for a period of five years.
Drs Bakermans and Jeneson will lead the efforts at the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, collecting detailed anatomical and physiological data of the human heart, vasculature and skeletal muscle under exercise stress using Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy. These data will be used to identify and validate personalized computational models of the human cardiovascular system developed by the groups of Prof Beard and co-investigator Dr David Nordsletten at the University of Michigan. The overall objective of the project is to untangle the contributions of intrinsic cardiac factors (energy shortage, mechanical failure) and extrinsic peripheral factors (vasodilation, oxygen transport) to exercise intolerance in heart failure, which will help to tailor treatment approaches to the individual patient.