Dr Christopher O'Shea PhD

• PhD in Physical Sciences for Health, University of Birmingham 2020
• MSc in Physical Sciences for Health, University of Birmingham 2016
• Mphys (Hons) in Physics, University of Bath 2015

Dr O’Shea graduated with a first class MPhys honours degree in Physics from the University of Bath in 2015.

Dr O’Shea then moved to the University of Birmingham to join the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Centre (EPSRC) funded Physical Sciences for Health doctoral training centre. He completed his PhD in 2020 under the supervision of Dr Davor Pavlovic, Professor Larissa Fabritz (Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences) and Dr Kashif Rajpoot (School of Computer Science). Chris worked on development of novel processing tools and methods for cardiac optical mapping, and application of these tools to dissect molecular mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias.

In December 2019, Dr O’Shea was awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust. Chris will work with Dr Davor Pavlovic, Dr Martin Bishop (King’s College London) and Professor Igor Efimov (George Washington University) to develop novel computational approaches for human cardiac mapping data and apply these methods to further treatment of atrial fibrillation. 

MBChB Year 2 Cardiovascular System

Dr O’Shea’s research focus is the use of a multi-disciplinary approach, combining computer sciences and physics, to achieve detailed understanding of cardiac arrythmias. Dr O’Shea’s research centres around electroanatomical mapping technologies, used to treat arrhythmias in the clinic, and pre-clinical optical mapping. 

Novel computational approaches for human cardiac mapping data

Electroanatomical mapping is a staple in electrophysiological clinics worldwide. Mapping provides high resolution recording of electrical activity in the heart, and over ten thousand ablation procedures (burning/freezing of cardiac tissue to treat arrhythmia) use mapping technologies in the UK each year. However, very little of this data is used for research and despite the use of the mapping data, many ablation procedures fail, and arrhythmia recurs.

Development of novel and open-source computational tools, using state of the art techniques including artificial intelligence approaches, will further our ability of effectively access and analyse mapping data. This will enable the use of this valuable clinical data to further our knowledge of cardiac arrythmias and how we can best prevent and treat their occurrence. Ultimately, this will allow us to advance treatment of arrythmias such as atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia, improving patient quality of life and reducing stroke, heart attack and sudden death.

Cardiac Optical Mapping

Optical mapping is a pre-clinical fluorescence-based technique that is used to visualise cardiac action potentials and calcium handling at a spatial resolution that is unmatched by other techniques. It has hence revolutionised many areas of cardiac electrophysiology. Our recent work involved the development of open-source software for analysis of the complex datasets produced during optical mapping experiments and has been used by ourselves and several groups worldwide of gain novel insights into arrhythmogenesis.

Research groups and centres

• Heart Failure and Arrhythmias Research Group

• ElectroMap Cardiac Optical Mapping Software