New cutting-edge software developed in Melbourne can help uncover how the most common heart tumor in children forms and changes. And the technology has the potential to further our understanding of other childhood diseases, according to a new study.

The research, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and published in Genome Biology, found the software, VR-Omics, can identify previously undetected cell activities of cardiac rhabdomyoma, a type of benign heart tumor.

Developed by MCRI’s Professor Mirana Ramialison, VR-Omics is the first tool capable of analyzing and visualizing data in both 2D and 3D virtual reality environments. The innovative technology aims to analyze the spatial genetic makeup of human tissue to better understand a specific disease.

Cardiac rhabdomyoma, usually detected during pregnancy or infancy, doesn’t cause health problems in most cases. But in some babies and children the tumors can grow and block blood flow to vital organs, causing respiratory distress, irregular heartbeat, obstructions and heart failure.

“When the tumors cause severe health complications, treatment options are limited and include surgically removing part of the heart, which may lead to further complications and death,” Professor Ramialison said. Unfortunately, it’s not well understood why these tumors form.”

To challenge her new software, Professor Ramialison and her team, including Denis Bienroth and Natalie Charitakis, analyzed heart tissue from three children in Melbourne with cardiac rhabdomyoma. In a breakthrough, the research uncovered specific underlying features of the tumor that hadn’t been identified previously.

Professor Ramialison said the VR-Omics tool would help researchers to gain a better insight into the disease.

“VR-Omics generates 3D visualizations of the cells within human tissue based on large collections of patient data,” she said. This could allow for greater analysis of human tissue compared to other methods.”

Professor Ramialison also benchmarked the software against existing state-of-the-art methods, finding it performed better in all analysis steps.

“VR-Omics has a unique capacity to analyze large datasets, which allows it to explore new biological mechanisms in rare tissue sections, like those from cardiac rhabdomyoma,” she said. “The technology will enable more biological discoveries that could help better understand many childhood conditions.”

Researchers from the Melbourne Center for Cardiovascular Genomics and Regenerative Medicine (CardioRegen), the University of Konstanz in Germany, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine (reNEW), University of Melbourne and Monash University also contributed to the findings.