Recipient organisationCoventry UniversitySource-published name: Coventry University
Funding£419K
PeriodSept 2025 — Sept 2028
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
A single electrical wave travelling across the muscle of the human uterus can determine whether a baby is born safely, too early, or not at all—yet scientists do not fully understand how these signals arise or spread. This project tackles a critical gap in knowledge: the electrical mechanisms that trigger and coordinate human uterine contractions remain poorly characterised, despite being central to healthy pregnancy and childbirth. Abnormal contractions contribute to spontaneous preterm birth and uterine dystocia (inefficient labour), which together drive a global toll of roughly 4.5 million maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths each year. Without a clear picture of the underlying electrical activity, clinicians lack reliable ways to predict or intervene in these complications. The research combines optical mapping experiments on human uterine tissue with multi-scale computational modelling. The team will build a three-dimensional model of uterine electrical activity that can be tested against real clinical data, including abdominal-surface electrohysterography (EHG) signals. If successful, the model could help engineers design better monitoring devices and allow researchers to simulate how drugs alter contraction patterns. For the NHS, this could mean fewer emergency caesareans, reduced neonatal intensive care admissions, and more cost-effective maternity services. The work is primarily fundamental science, but it directly targets a poorly understood physiological process with clear routes to clinical translation.
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Background The regulation of uterine contraction (UC) activity is involved in maintaining the physiological process of gestation and, at term, facilitating the safe delivery of the fetus and placenta. Abnormal UCs may lead to serious diseases, increasing the risks of health problems and even death for mothers and babies (globally, around 4.5 million maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths occur every year, WHO 2023). UC is determined by spontaneous, episodic electrical activity traveling across the muscle cells of the uterus wall. Unfortunately, the electrical mechanisms underlying human UCs is poorly understood. Overcoming this impasse will assist in identifying what has gone awry in pregnancies complicated by abnormal UCs such as spontaneous preterm birth (early activation of electrical activity) or uterine dystocia at term (inefficient electrical-contraction co-ordination) (aligns with EPSRC’s healthcare technologies Challenge 2: Transforming early prediction and diagnosis). This will contribute ultimately to improving the maternal and neonatal health and the prevention of health risks involved in pregnancy and childbirth (aligns with Challenge 1: Improving population health and prevention). The technology of computational modelling provides, in principle, a powerful tool to dissect the mechanisms of human uterine electrical excitation across multiple (cell, tissue, organ, abdomen) scales. Aims and objectives In collaboration with host organisations (University of Leeds and Coventry University), we aim to develop a quantitative, rigorous uterine model that informs us of physiological processes, and can be translated to clinical settings for advancing diagnosis and/or treatment. This requires integration of new physiological experimentation, signal processing and computational quantification to: 1) understand better the spatiotemporal dynamics of electrical signals underlying human UCs; 2) furnish and refine new computational models using real human-centric data from multiple scales; 3) understand how clinically-useful abdominal-surface signal, e.g., EHG, reflects the electrical patterns underlying UC activities in normal/abnormal labours. The objectives are to: 1) Conduct novel optical mapping biological experimentation with human uterine tissue to produce new information of the regulation of spatiotemporal electrical activities; 2) Develop a multi-scale computational model of UC activities using the new information of human uterine spatiotemporal electrical signals and clinical human data; 3) Develop the inverse solution to reconstruct electrical activities on the uterus from abdominal-surface EHG signals matched to uterine morphologies. Potential applications and benefits The award will support the Project Lead to develop physiology and computational modelling expertise. New knowledge of the mechanisms of spatiotemporal electrical activity underlying human UCs will have wide benefit to pregnancy/uterus-related research (physiology, obstetrics, drug development). It will also inform the wider academic community interested in tissue/organ-specific mechanisms of electrogenesis and the development of experimentally-informed virtual organs for future hypotheses-testing (e.g. actions of putative drugs). The 3D multi-scale computational model of uterine electrical activities will have potential to be used for simulating UC propagation to guide the development of new algorithms for the estimation of UC propagation with real human recordings, benefitting clinical biomedical engineers. Further application of the novel uterine model beyond this proposal promises to facilitate the development of novel maternal monitoring technologies and drugs/treatments for problem pregnancies. These advancements will benefit the maternal/fetal monitoring device and pharmaceutical industries, and can be applicable to routine clinical use, reducing the risks of neonatal mortality and health risks for patients. It will ultimately help the NHS achieve potential economic benefits in terms of maternity services through the use of new technological solutions.
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