Sustainable Open-Source Software Tools for Simulating Cardiac Dynamics

/ABSTRACT This project will support software development and community engagement for the CARDINAL open-source software infrastructure, which aims to provide a unified platform for simulating all major aspects of cardiac function. The prevalence of cardiovascular disease continues to drive research studies, with methodologies and scales ranging from wet-lab experiments and animal studies to large-scale clinical trials. While these experimental research approaches provide powerful tools for interrogation, yielding critical insights into cardiac function and disease, in silico computational models provide a critical resource for integration, enabling the synthesis of complex, multifaceted data into a predictive physics-based framework. Given the complex etiology of disease and variability in clinical measurements, distilling this information to identify the optimal approach to personalized treatment remains a significant challenge. Predictive computational models of the heart, capable of capturing all critical aspects of cardiac function, serve as powerful synergistic tools that can assimilate clinical information and drive predictive studies of heart function in response to treatment. A core challenge, however, remains that effective development of cardiac computational models is hindered by the lack of available tools, forcing modelers and researchers either to limit the scope of their studies or invest significantly in infrastructure development. Indeed, although substantial scientific, engineering, and medical research has gone into modeling cardiac dynamics, no open-source simulation frameworks currently provide integrated modeling capabilities addressing all major aspects of heart function. The absence of comprehensive, open-source simulation tools addressing the entire spectrum of heart function poses a significant barrier to advancing cardiovascular research. The CARDINAL software framework aims to address this critical gap in the research software ecosystem. This software development project specifically focuses on performance enhancement, containerization, and community engagement activities that are aligned with the Building Sustainable Software Tools for Open Science (RFA-OD-24- 010) program. Aim 1 will optimize the computational performance of CARDINAL to enable scalable and efficient simulations of cardiac dynamics by enhancing core modules and integrating performance portability libraries. Aim 2 will improve the portability and ease of deployment of CARDINAL across diverse computing environments by developing containerized versions and providing pre-compiled binaries for major operating systems. Aim 3 will foster community engagement and sustainability of CARDINAL by developing comprehensive documentation, creating tutorials and example projects, establishing support channels, and conducting outreach activities to build an active user base. Through these efforts, CARDINAL will provide a robust, scalable, and user-friendly tool that supports advanced research in cardiovascular medicine, ultimately contributing to the development of personalized treatment strategies and improving outcomes for patients with cardiovascular disease. Project Number: 1R03HL182166-01 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) | Principal Investigator: Boyce Griffith | Institution: UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL, CHAPEL HILL, NC | Award Amount: $459,838 | Activity Code: R03 | Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel[ZRG1 MCST-E (52)] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/1R03HL18216601