Cardiac Diseases

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.

Principal Investigators

Principal Investigator	Research Interest
Professor Andrew Bradbury	Clinical trials in vascular surgery.
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 Katja Gehmlich	Inherited cardiac diseases (cardiomyopathies), biomechanical stress signalling, disease modelling
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

Honorary Principal Investigator	Research Interest
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

Associate/Affiliate Principal Investigators	Research Interest
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

Research Groups

Translational Research on Heart Failure and Arrhythmias Cluster
Congential Heart Disease Research Group
Birmingham Cardio-Renal Research Group

DaRe2THINK 
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.