Creating global leadership in cardiovascular care, research and education.
The ~£10.3m investment allows us to integrate clinical care and research strategies to tackle the most pressing cardiovascular (CV) healthcare issues facing the community, with broad global relevance. These are in the areas of genomic diagnoses of rare inherited disease, innovative therapeutics for hypertension, addressing the growing burden of heart failure and establishing a state-of-the-art device innovation centre for cardiovascular disease.
The support also underpins the collaboration between Barts Health, Queen Mary University of London and UCL Partners and the creation of a CV focussed Academic Health Science Centre collaborative across the affiliated hospitals within the two organisations. This integrated NHS/University partnership places patient care at the centre of our strategies that connects cutting-edge cardiovascular science to Barts Health patients.
The Barts Charity funded programme is lead by Ahluwalia, Caulfield and Knight and contains an innovative mix of faculty development and defined projects, including:
Project summary: The CVCTU has been established from £1.7m funding from the Barts Charity and sits within the clinical research facility within the William Harvey Heart Centre. The Director is Prof Amrita Ahluwalia, and the unit supports all areas of our cardiovascular research programmes and is the cardiovascular spoke of the Barts Clinical Trials Unit (CTU), a UKCRC registered unit. For further information visit Barts Cardiovascular Clinical Trial Unit.
Research lead: Amrita Ahluwalia (Director), Dan Jones (Intervention), Ajay Gupta (Prevention)
Key Clinicians and Researchers: Amrita Ahluwalia, Mark Caulfield, David Collier, Ceri Davies, Mel Lobo, Anthony Mathur, Sam Mohiddin, James Moon, Mike Mullen, Steffen Petersen, Richard Schilling, Chris Thiemermann, Simon Woldman
Clinical Transformation Lead: Amrita Ahluwalia
Project summary: We possess extremely strong credentials in novel device therapy with experience of developing technologies with both industry and in‐house (exploiting our tremendously robust engineering faculties within our academic resources). This project aims to make best use of our skills and assets to establish a CV devices centre. This will allow us to integrate teams of clinicians, academics, biomedical engineers, materials & imaging scientists and trial design expertise with industrial partners to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic devices – a global review has shown that this centre will be a unique centre. The confidence of delivering the aims and objectives of this project are enhanced via relationships with UCLP and our partnership with Yale University in the USA. Projects include:
Research Leads: Andreas Baumbach, Alexandra Lansky, Anthony Mathur
Key Researchers: Chris Broomhead, Adam Graham, Mohsin Hussain, Asghar Khaghani, Pier Lambiase, Chris MacGregor, James Moon, Mike Mullen, Steffen Petersen, Richard Schilling, Simon Woldman
Clinical Transformation Lead: Anthony Mathur
Project summary: This project harnesses the clinical and translational opportunity afforded from the Barts Heart Centre and Genomics England programmes in two distinct areas that offer the potential for real clinical benefit for patient care in inherited CV disease:
Research leads: Mark Caulfield and Perry Elliott
Key Clinicians and Researchers: Panos Deloukas, David Kelsell, Pier Lambiase, Sam Mohiddin, Patricia Munroe, Andy Tinker
Clinical Transformation Lead: Mark Caulfield
Project summary: This project will maximise the powerful content of healthcare data held within the Barts BioResource (secondary care data) by coupling it with that contained within the EMIS Web clinical notes system (primary care data) of ‘3-Boroughs’ in North and East London i.e. Waltham Forest, Newham and Tower Hamlets and that received via the PROMS (patient originated data). These data will be analysed for the development and delivery of improved care pathways that enhance the services provided to patients and their associated outcomes.
Research Leads: Michael Barnes, Steffen Petersen, Richard Schilling, Andrew Wragg
Project summary: This thematic area houses a portfolio of projects that exploit the establishment of the CVCTU and Device Centre by developing real clinical benefit for patient care in hypertension and heart failure based upon pharmacotherapy. This represents a major expansion of our ability to take our bench-based discoveries to the clinical setting. Projects include:
Research Leads: Amrita Ahluwalia
Key Clinicians and Researchers: Mark Caulfield, Ceri Davies, Vikas Kapil, Clement Lau, Mel Lobo, Charlotte Manisty, Christopher Primus, Simon Woldman