Neuranics Limited
University of Edinburgh

Outside of hospital environments, detecting heart rhythm abnormalities that indicate ischaemic heart disease remains challenging. The heart’s contraction and relaxation cycles can be monitored using well-established electrocardiography (ECG) or through tiny magnetic waves generated by the heart using a method known as magnetocardiography (MCG). Unlike ECG, MCG can capture the heart’s pulses through clothes, without the need for direct skin contact and is able to detect certain heart abnormalities that cannot be seen using conventional ECG measurements.

Neuranics is developing highly sensitive, low-cost magnetic sensors that would be able to remotely measure the heart activity of patients at risk of heart disease. However, using these sensors outside controlled environments, such as hospitals or laboratories, introduces sources of magnetic noise that can interfere with the heart signals and make identifying the heart’s MCG signal difficult.

Maja’s work aims to develop artificial intelligence methods that can isolate the MCG signal from environmental magnetic noise and create a digital health platform where data from this signal can be interpreted and analysed for patients to access. Following ethical approval, she plans to collect data from healthy participants and patients with ischaemic heart disease to train a machine learning model to predict the development of cardiac conditions.

Accurately detecting heart rhythms using MCG could potentially enable the remote early diagnosis of heart disease, helping to reduce death rates and lower cardiovascular-related NHS costs, which are estimated to reach £7.4 billion annually.

Biography:

After completing her International Baccalaureate at the United World College in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Maja deferred her Biomedical Engineering MEng at the University of Glasgow to gain firsthand experience through internships for one year. Upon commencing her studies, she was recognised on the Engineering Excellence List every year from 2018 to 2021 by the University of Glasgow School of Engineering. She also served on the board of Handprints e-Nable Society, an organisation that provides 3D-printed prosthetics to children worldwide. Maja completed her master's thesis at the Neuroengineering Lab at ETH Zurich. After graduating with a Master of Engineering (MEng) in Biomedical Engineering with First Class Honours, Maja joined Neuranics as a Software Engineer.