# Novel Acquisition and Computation of Cardiac Functions in Developing Zebrafish Embryos

> **NIH NIH R41** · SENSORIIS, INC. · 2024 · $294,993

## Abstract

Project Summary
Despite extensive research and medical expenditures, cardiovascular disease continues to be the leading cause
of mortality and morbidity in the modern world. Among animal models used in cardiovascular research, zebrafish
(Dario rerio) has been proven to be the premier model for studies of developmental genetics and functional
genomics owing to their conserved genome, small size, low-cost for maintenance, short generation time, and
optical transparency, just to name a few. Further, zebrafish model enables a forward genetic approach to reveal
the genetic basis and underlying molecular mechanisms of numerous heart diseases. Zebrafish cardiac
physiology shows similar phenotypes to humans and the time-lapse videos of the heart development can be
easily acquired. All these make zebrafish an ideal choice to investigate cardiac development, congenital heart
disease as well as therapeutic potentials.
The embryonic zebrafish (up to ~3 days) are transparent with decent internal organs visibility, including the heart
and the vascular system. Thus, bright field microscopic videos can quantify cardiac mechanism and morphology
at this stage. Conventionally, researchers have to label the ventricle manually, find the End Systolic (ES) and
End Diastolic (ED) frames, and then derive the desired parameters, such as ejection fraction (EF) and heart rate
(HR). This is tedious, time-consuming and inaccurate.
In this context, we aim to develop a Zebrafish Automatic Cardiovascular Assessment System (ZACAS) with
housing chambers, camera chipsets and electronics to give a fast, economic, hassle-free and easy solution for
researchers to assess cardiac functions of developing zebrafish embryos. Specifically, we will i) Develop a novel
apparatus to house and assess developing zebrafish embryos; and ii) Improve our existing framework to work
with real-time videos and ECG taken from the apparatus. The developed system could be an invaluable asset
for thousands of research laboratories worldwide as well as company working on drug screening.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10922603
- **Project number:** 1R41HL166096-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** SENSORIIS, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Hung Cao
- **Activity code:** R41 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $294,993
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-07-01 → 2025-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10922603

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10922603, Novel Acquisition and Computation of Cardiac Functions in Developing Zebrafish Embryos (1R41HL166096-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10922603. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*