Cardiac Diseases

We are shaped by our genetic code, our environment, and by our actions. Our multidisciplinary research aims to understand how our genes, environment and lifestyle interact to affect the structure and function of our hearts.

We use these insights to understand the factors which lead to and affect the outcomes of heart failure, atrial fibrillation, congenital heart disease, sudden cardiac death and myocardial infarction.

Theme Leads

Dr Davor Pavlovic
Associate Professor in Cardiovascular Sciences
Staff profile for Dr Davor Pavlovic, Associate Professor in Cardiovascular Sciences, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, College of Medicine and Health.
Mr Nigel E Drury
Associate Clinical Professor
Staff profile of Mr Nigel Drury, Associate Clinical Professor at the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Birmingham

Cardiovascular Sciences | Our Themes: Cardiac Diseases

Introduction to the Cardiac Disease research theme at the Department (formally Institiute) of Cardiovascular Sciences

Introduction to the Cardiac Disease research theme at the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences

Transcript

Dr Davor Pavlovic: Hello, I'm Dr Davor Pavlovic. And together with my clinical colleague Mr Nigel Drury, we co-lead the Cardiac Diseases theme at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences. This is one of eight institutes within the College of Medical and Dental Sciences at the University of Birmingham.

Mr Nigel Drury: The Cardiac Diseases Theme is made up of 23 individual research groups, bringing together experienced clinical and non-clinical academics with multi-disciplinary expertise in epidemiological research, translational science, clinical trials, and data analysis.

Dr Davor Pavlovic: Our world leading researchers use clinical and translational approaches to address some of the key challenges in cardiovascular medicine, from identifying the causes of disease through to improving the treatment options for patients. These include atrial fibrillation, heart failure, structural heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, and sudden cardiac death. We're also developing precision-based medicine approaches so the specific treatment can be adapted to the individual patient in order to improve their response and outcomes.

Mr Nigel Drury: We work closely with the major NHS trusts across Birmingham including University Hospitals Birmingham and Birmingham Women's and Children's, and through Birmingham Health Partners, which greatly enhances our translational research capabilities.

Dr Davor Pavlovic: We're very proud to be part of the cardiac diseases theme at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, and of course to work with the colleagues and research that can improve the lives of patients both in Birmingham and around the world.

About our theme

In our Cardiac Diseases Theme we have a strong team of experienced clinical and non-clinical academics with multidisciplinary expertise in epidemiological research, data analysis, clinical trials, and translational (laboratory and clinical) science. Together, we develop approaches for integrated models of care and precision medicine for patients with cardiovascular conditions.

The cardiac diseases theme is made up of 25 individual PI-led research groups, bringing together experienced clinical and non-clinical academics with multidisciplinary expertise in epidemiological research, clinical trials, translational science and data analysis.

Our world leading researchers use clinical and translational approaches to address some of the key challenges in cardiovascular disease, from identifying the causes of disease through to improving the treatment options for patients. Our main areas of focus are atrial fibrillation, heart failure, structural heart disease, peripheral vascular disease and sudden death. We are also developing precision medicine approaches so that specific treatment can be adapted to the individual patient to improve prevention and treatment of these conditions.

We work closely with the major NHS trusts across Birmingham including University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, and Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust, and through Birmingham Health Partners which greatly enhances our translational capabilities.

Our Principal Investigators

Principal Investigators

Professor Andrew Bradbury
Clinical trials in vascular surgery

Professor Katja Gehmlich
Inherited cardiac diseases (cardiomyopathies), biomechanical stress signalling, disease modelling

Professor Dipak Kotecha
Big data in cardiology clinical trials

Professor Melanie Madhani
Identifying novel targets and interventions for hypertension; myocardial infarction and heart failure

Professor Jonathan Townend
The relationship between chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease. Mechanisms underlying the increased cardiovascular risks of patients with CKD and potential treatments to reduce this risk

Dr Karina Bunting
Improving the assessment of heart function in patients with atrial fibrillation and heart failure

Mr Nigel Drury
Surgery for congenital heart disease, clinical trials, and myocardial protection

Dr Ingrid Dumitriu
Targeting inflammation in cardiovascular disease - focus on atherosclerosis and atrial fibrillation

Dr Christopher O'Shea
Clinical and pre-clinical cardiac mapping

Dr Davor Pavlovic
Understanding molecular mechanisms and regulation of ion transport in cardiac muscle in health and disease

Honorary Principal Investigators

Professor Larissa Fabritz
Translational research into heart failure and arrhythmias; inherited cardiac conditions

Professor Charles Ferro
Cardiovascular disease associated kidney disease

Professor Paulus Kirchhof
Translational research into heart failure and arrhythmias; atrial fibrillation

Professor Rick Steeds
Cardiovascular Imaging

Dr Paul Clift
Pulmonary hypertension, congenital heart disease and arrhythmias.

Dr Rami Dhillion
Cardiopulmonary adaptation following correction of structural heart disease

Mr Tim Jones
Congenital cardiac surgery; myocardial protection; cardiopulmonary bypass

Dr Manish Kalla
Cardiac electrophysiology, assessment, treatment and catheter ablation of arrhythmia including supraventricular tachycardia, atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia.

Dr Sern Lim
Heart failure, transplantation and mechanical circulatory support

Dr Gillian Lowe
Inherited platelet disorders

Dr Anne Seale
Prenatal diagnosis

Associate/Affiliate Principal Investigators

Professor Davide Calebiro
Adrenergic receptor signalling in cardiomyocytes, advanced optical methods

Professor Claudio Mauro
Interconnections between metabolic and inflammatory pathways

Professor Georgios Gkoutos
Health Data Science, Bioinformatics, Artificial Intelligence for Health, Multmodal multiomics integrative analytics, Translational comparative phenomics, Precision Medicine

Professor Gareth Lavery

Dr Maria Chiara Arno
The development of cell engineering technologies with polymeric materials that find application as cancer therapeutics and cell-based materials.

Miss Ruth Benson
Research into surgery and epidemiology of vascular disease; sex based disparities in vascular pathology

Dr Keith Brain
Autonomic cardiovascular regulation

Dr Andrew Holmes
Hypoxia, ion channel dysfunction and cardiac arrhythmias

Dr Clare Ray
Cardiorespiratory Integration and Control

Dr Robert Stephenson
Structural remodeling of the heart in health and disease

Professor Daniel Tennant

Our research groups

Translational Research on Heart Failure and Arrhythmias Cluster
Congential Heart Disease Research Group
Birmingham Cardio-Renal Research Group
DaRe2THINK is a transformational project that will test a new way of running clinical trials at General Practices in the NHS. The trial will use health information already collected in the NHS to reduce the time taken for research, both for the patients and NHS staff. This will allow the NHS to reach new and larger groups of patients that could benefit from new treatments opening the possibility of research to populations that would not have previously taken part.
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Early Detection of Stroke and Atrial Fibrillation (MAESTRIA) is a major international research programme which will develop a precise method to diagnose atrial cardiomyopathy, thereby providing clinicians with individualised clinical patient data to predict a patient's likelihood of suffering from subclinical AF, their future risk of AF and their overall risk of ischemic stroke with an accuracy that surpasses any currently available instrument.