The British Heart Foundation (BHF) has awarded £4 million to support world-class cardiovascular research at our partners the University of Manchester over the next five years.
The University of Manchester has pledged to match the funding awarded by the BHF, taking the total investment in cardiovascular disease research at the University to £8 million.
The funding will support the university to cultivate a world-class research environment that encourages collaboration, inclusion and innovation, and where visionary scientists can drive lifesaving breakthroughs. NCA researchers in renal medicine (cardio-renal theme) and in stroke already have strong working links with the cardiovascular division, and are part of the cardiovascular theme of the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).
Researchers at the University welcomed the announcement. Professor Bernard Keavney, BHF Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Manchester and Cardiovascular Medicine Co-Theme Lead at the NIHR Manchester BRC, said: “This is a landmark moment for cardiovascular research in Greater Manchester. We will focus particularly on science that will meet the needs of those who suffer disproportionately from cardiovascular disease because they are disadvantaged – be that by socio-economic status, race or ethnicity, geography or genetics. We are determined that this award will lead to positive health changes for our local population in the North West – who suffer amongst the worst rates of cardiovascular illness and death in England – as well as nationally and internationally.”
New insights
The award to the University of Manchester will support researchers to:
- Discover the reasons why some babies are born with heart problems (congenital heart disease) and find ways in which these problems could be better predicted, potentially avoided, and treated when they occur in families.
- Better understand the genetic drivers of high blood pressure, kidney disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions.
- Provide new insights into the causes and consequences of heart failure and identify new potential treatment strategies.
- Uncover the links between inflammation and inflammatory diseases (such as certain types of arthritis) and the higher risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke these patients carry, and find ways to break these links.
- Use Artificial Intelligence on largescale datasets to identify how we can better predict and prevent cardiovascular diseases, including in patients already suffering from other conditions such as cancer.
Future breakthroughs
The University of Manchester received a £1 million Accelerator Award from the BHF in 2019 to enable the university to develop its cardiovascular research programme. This funding has supported research that will lay the foundations for future breakthroughs, including:
- Development of a biodegradable gel that could help to repair damaged hearts. Researchers showed that the gel can be safely injected into the beating heart to act as a scaffold for cells to grow into new heart tissue. They hope that it could form a new generation of treatments to repair damage caused by a heart attack.
- Identifying how high blood pressure causes the small arteries in the brain to become constricted, reducing the blood flow through them and increasing the risk of developing vascular dementia. The mechanism could be the target of new drugs to prevent vascular dementia.
- Providing new biological insights into high blood pressure by studying the genes that influence differences in blood pressure in the kidney, the key organ controlling blood pressure. This work identified opportunities to repurpose drugs currently used for other conditions to better treat high blood pressure.
Its recent successful funding bid will now support the university to take the next steps towards internationally recognised excellence in cardiovascular disease research.