Indian brain behind Irish heart research

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When the Irish government announced a half-million-euro grant in July for a project aimed at the early detection of heart problems in children, few readers in this part of the world knew that the driving force behind the programme was an Indian researcher from Kerala.

The project was conceived by Trivandrum-born Professor Lizy Abraham, who devised an ambitious plan to develop a tool that detects heart defects in young children using wireless phonocardiography and artificial intelligence (AI).

The professor was in the news in December 2023 when students at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Technology for Women (LBSITW), Trivandrum, gained national attention by becoming the first all-female team in India to design, develop, and launch a satellite.

As the person who shepherded the project that led to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launching the satellite, Lizy and her team appeared on several news platforms to discuss their work. However, many didn’t know at the time that, even during that busy period, Dr Lizy had continued developing plans for a medical tool.

“I was working on this even while we were involved in the satellite mission. There was a lot of data to be collected, and it was not easy to come by as medical data access is sensitive. But I managed to find some very good mentors along the way, and they helped a lot,” says the professor, affectionately called “Lizy mam’ by the adoring students at LBSITW.

Soon after the satellite launch, Lizy returned to her pet project. “In many countries, if there is some anomaly, a local doctor has to refer the child for an echocardiogram test, and only then can the assistance of a specialist be accessed. This is a time-consuming process, as many developed countries are burdened with long waiting lists even for routine tests. So precious time is lost, and this delay in diagnosing the illness can be crucial,” says Lizy.

“Even when it is detected early, an echo test can take as long as 45 minutes, and keeping a toddler still during the entire process is a difficult task. Disturbances and crying can affect the quality of the data.”

Lizy knew that Ireland faced such challenges, as she had conducted post-doctoral research in smart agriculture AI there in 2021. Health figures show that about 500 children in Ireland are born with congenital heart diseases (CHDs), or malformations caused by abnormal heart development.

Innovative Approach

Lizy’s innovative mind conceived the idea of using an AI-based automated cardiac disorder detection system, utilising heart murmur sounds obtained via a digital stethoscope.

“This will support physicians and primary healthcare providers in the early diagnosis of congenital heart diseases, sparing children from undergoing expensive and lengthy diagnostic procedures directly,” she told the Irish Independent newspaper recently.

Lizy submitted the proposal in 2022 while working as a post-doctoral researcher at South East Technological University (Setu), Ireland. After winning the award in 2024, she was appointed as the head of the Emerging Networks Division at the Walton Institute. She accepted the post after taking leave from LBSITW.

In July, the Irish government granted 556,070 euros to complete the project titled “An Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based Automated Approach for the Classification of Pediatric Heart Murmurs and Disease Diagnosis using Wireless Phonocardiography.”

“This was a plan I had submitted as an individual researcher. I worked hard to get the cooperation of cardiac specialists. I must have called over a hundred of them, as I was in a new country and had very little network. But luckily, things fell into place soon,” says Lizy, during a recent holiday in Kerala.

The project got a great fillip when Ireland's largest paediatric hospital, Children’s Health Ireland in Crumlin, agreed to collaborate with the project, with one of the leading cardiac specialists in the country, Dr Adam James, backing the plan.

The work gained further momentum when Dr Saji Philip of Medical Mission Hospital in Thiruvalla, Kerala, who had worked with Lizy before, also joined forces with her on the new project. This collaboration between hospitals in two countries brought an added advantage, as the varied data would reduce the risk of bias.

Simple Methods

Lizy says the study would be structured so that the doctors involved in data collection could continue their regular work without disruption. “Doctors are extremely busy in hospitals, especially in paediatric wards, so we didn’t want to create any disturbance for them.”

The plan is to convert the data – namely, the sound obtained through doctors' stethoscopes – into signals, which will then be collected and analysed using AI. Digital stethoscopes are already equipped to provide this data, and the study aims to develop a simple electronic gadget that can be attached to older stethoscopes to obtain it.

Lizy says her innovative thinking stems from her exposure to science experiments during her school days in Venganoor, on the outskirts of Trivandrum, and credits the local science propagation group Sastra Sahithya Parishath for fostering out-of-the-box thinking in school children.

She recalls that competing with students from more renowned schools in science competitions meant focusing on fresh ideas rather than traditional lab research.

Childhood Experiments

“I still remember how we went out collecting little pests found in the paddy fields and coconut trees around Venganoor and presented charts with information on them as our school project.”

Her innovative approach led these projects to rank among the top in state-level competitions.

“It was before the days of the internet, so there was a lot of travel to meet experts and extensive reading to gather the data.”

However, the joy of upgrading that information into slides and presentations using overhead projectors remains vivid in her memory. That spark continued throughout Lizy’s student days, as she went on to obtain her BTech from MG University and her MTech from Anna University.

That may explain why, at a time when many researchers limit their projects to publicly available data, Lizy is pursuing a path that is long and winding. But as she points out, only that kind of work will produce something truly useful for society. Otherwise, it risks becoming just another research project that ends in a doctorate or a paper publication in a journal.

“Having been awarded a fellowship by the Irish government and with the involvement of Ireland’s most renowned child cardiac facility, I am now obligated to deliver a product by the end of the fourth year. I know it’s tough, but I’ve embraced the challenge.”

She has already hired a Chinese researcher who is a PhD student. Now, she aims to build a core team and begin the work that could potentially result in a simple tool developed as a mobile phone app.

A Role Model

One big sacrifice that Prof Lizy is making is staying away from her teen children and husband Renjtih Das who is an employee at the Indian Space Research Organisation. She says it was a decision she made after deep contemplation.

“Many women researchers give up their pursuits due to family pressure and later regret the missed opportunities. I chose to continue with my research, which was made easier by having a supportive family.”

“I want to set an example and show that women can achieve such results without having to sacrifice one or the other. If my work can encourage more women researchers to take up such challenges, that would be wonderful.”

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