My research focus is congenital heart defects. Around 1% of children are born with heart defects and the proportion of patients with severe defects is increasing. Modern care with early diagnosis, surgical treatment and post-operative care and follow-up has resulted in more patients surviving into adulthood. Morbidity, and especially heart failure, is common among these patients, however the mechanisms are not fully understood. Also, it is important to individualize the treatment since congenital defects vary in severity and similar defects might have different anatomical and physiological differences.

In our research we use advanced magnetic resonance imaging and patient-specific cardiac modeling to learn more about the mechanisms behind heart failure. These modeling techniques are also used together with computational fluid dynamics to develop methods to simulate interventions. This way different patient specific approaches can be evaluated before actually performing surgery or catheter-based interventions on these patients to get the best results and decrease the risks.