From July 9 to 11, the Science and Technology Exhibition, organized by the Foundation for Science and Technology and the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture – Ciência Viva brought together the scientific community and key players from the science and innovation ecosystem at the Nova School of Business & Economics to promote and discuss the scientific research in Portugal, inspiring new ideas and fostering transformative collaborations. Sónia Santos, a PhD fellow at ciTechCare in the area of heart failure and the autonomic nervous system, was present with the poster presentation “Data-driven phenotyping in HFpEF: A protocol paving the way to personalized medicine.”

The project’s goal was to identify phenotypic subgroups in patients with Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF) using machine learning techniques and to evaluate their association with diagnostic scores (HFA-PEFF, H2FPEF) and functional capacity assessed by cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET).

Based on the work developed, the research team—which also includes Rui Fonseca-Pinto, João Morais, and Alexandre Antunes—has begun building the clinical database and collecting retrospective data. The researchers hope that the identified subgroups will lead to a better understanding of HFpEF pathophysiology, help identify patients at higher functional risk, and contribute to personalized medicine strategies for this population.