Project Grant R01HL180491

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute awarded the University of Wisconsin - Madison a Project Grant of $661,286 on July 22, 2026, under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837).

The award funds development of a combined fetal magnetocardiography and echocardiography platform using optically-pumped magnetometer quantum sensors to enable simultaneous assessment of fetal cardiac electrical rhythm and structural function. Current prenatal diagnostic methods rely heavily on fetal echocardiography, which excels in structural and functional assessment but cannot reliably evaluate electrophysiological abnormalities; fetal magnetocardiography conversely provides superior electrical rhythm assessment but lacks structural information. The project will develop signal processing methods to integrate magnetocardiography data with echocardiographic images through an integrated probe that automatically registers optically-pumped magnetometer sensor positions and orientations relative to ultrasound images of the fetus. Beamforming, adaptive filtering, maximum likelihood estimation, and machine learning methods will improve signal-to-noise ratio and reduce signal dropout from fetal movement. The award will also develop methodology to perform signal-averaging of echocardiographic data using magnetocardiography QRS complexes as precise time markers, enabling temporal alignment of echocardiographic tracings from different cardiac regions and mitigation of variability in mechanical interval measurements.

Performance of work occurs in Madison, Wisconsin 53715. The period of performance extends through March 31, 2030.