Rasheda Chowdhury

Biography

Dr Chowdhury read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University with Part II in Pharmacology in 2003. She then gained an MSc in Pharmacology at University of Oxford in 2004. She was awarded a PhD titled "Gap junction remodelling and conduction abnormalties in the heart" in 2011 from Imperial College. She is now a Research Associate in Electrophysiology and Pacing group. Her interests lie in the electro-architecture of the myocardium and understanding structural factors which contribute to normal and abnormal electrograms. Cardiac arrhythmias are a group of conditions in which the contraction of the heart is irregular, or faster or slower than normal, preventing the heart from carrying out its role of sustaining circulation. Abnormal electrical conduction through the heart can lead to arrhythmias. The contact electrogram, recorded from electrodes placed inside the heart can be used clinically to locate areas of abnormalities. Contact electrograms are routinely used in clinical procedures to guide therapy for arrhythmias. However, the content of the electrogram and pathophysiological changes are not well understood. Rasheda’s current work is to address the hypothesis that electrogram morphology is determined by local cellular activity and architectural determinants of electrical propagation. Simple cell and tissue models are used to determine the fundamental relationships between the electro-architecture and electrogram characteristics, providing inputs for modelling these relationships. Signal feature extraction and correlation at this fundamental level can solve the inverse problem of determining cellular and tissue abnormalities from the electrogram using machine learning algorithms. These predictive algorithms could be modified for use in the clinic to inform electrophysiology procedures.

Research Interest

Cardiac arrhythmias, Natural Sciences