Biomarkers for early diagnosis and treatment monitoring in pulmonary hypertension

Objectives

The overall objective of bmg19 is to identify novel biomarkers (imaging, biosignals, and circulating) of early pH changes that will allow professionals to detect any disease phenotype before its cardiovascular impact and improve patient stratification, providing tools for efficient diagnostic evaluation and establishing criteria to determine response to new treatments, thereby improving patient prognosis.

To achieve this, we have set two main specific objectives:

1) The first is related to all in vivo activities of the project, aimed at developing imaging biomarkers and biosignals for the diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of new therapies for the disease. For this objective, we propose the following actions:

Optimization of MRI protocols for: 3D flow with respiratory control, 4D, cine, and T1 mapping for diagnostic efficiency in pulmonary hypertension (PH)

Clinical study of biomarkers in PH patients from WHO groups I-III

Development of software applications for cardiovascular and flow image processing

New molecular imaging applications in pulmonary hypertension

Analysis of non-invasive physiological biosignals (hemodynamic and respiratory) for the development of a diagnostic tool in the context of pulmonary vascular dysfunction.

2) The second objective relates to all ex vivo activities and modeling within the project, aimed at developing new materials for potential treatments, constructing devices and sensors to measure the effectiveness of emerging treatments, and, above all, identifying biomarkers using both classical (omics) methods and through detection with individualized sensors. Associated with this second specific objective are the following actions:

Development of new theranostic systems with the capacity for both treatment and diagnosis (molecular imaging).

Development of new biomaterials for the controlled delivery and release of therapeutic agents (e.g., using RNA interference in the lung and novel anti- and antiproliferative approaches) so that they effectively reach their targets within the endothelial and smooth muscle cells of the pulmonary vasculature.

Development of a microfluidic MRI-compatible lab-on-chip system to study the therapeutic efficacy of the best developed biomaterials, as well as to study flow patterns in various pseudo-pathological conditions, such as those associated with excessive cell growth and consequent aortic stenosis.
Prospective study of genetic (miRNA, proteomic, and metabolomic) and imaging biomarkers in liquid biopsies of patients in groups I-III with pulmonary hypertension diagnosed by coronary artery sclerosis complex (CAD).