Project: Electromechanical presages of sudden cardiac death in the young: integrating imaging, modelling and genetics for patient stratification

Acronym	EMPATHY
Duration	01/05/2019 - 30/04/2021
Project Topic	In the young (<40 years), sudden cardiac death (SCD) is often the first manifestation of a genetic cardiac disease causing lethal arrhythmias. Both male gender and physical exercise are known risk factors for SCD in this vulnerable population. Current mechanistic understanding of how gender-related and environmental factors, such as exercise, interact with a pro-arrhythmic substrate and trigger life-threatening arrhythmias is limited. This lack of knowledge makes the identification of those at risk for SCD extremely difficult. The EMPATHY project aims to unravel the complex pro-arrhythmic electro-mechanical interactions in the apparently healthy yet vulnerable hosts of genetic cardiac diseases by combining three different but highly complementary scientific fields, being clinical cardiac imaging (OSLO), genetics and cellular electrophysiology (MILAN), and multi-scale computational modelling (MAASTRICHT). We expect that the integrative EMPATHY approach will reveal novel genetic and electro-mechanical signatures of arrhythmogenic diseases, enabling earlier disease recognition, personalized therapeutic intervention, and effective prevention of SCD in the young.
Network	ERA-CVD
Call	Joint Transnational Call for Proposal 2018 (JTC 2018)

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Maastricht University Medical Center	Coordinator	Netherlands
2	IRCCS Institute Auxologico	Partner	Italy
3	Oslo University Hospital	Partner	Norway