BHF awards £35m funding to nine UK universities for cardiovascular disease

Affecting more than 7 million people in the UK, cardiovascular diseases are conditions that affect the heart or circulation

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) has awarded a total of £35m in funding to nine universities across the UK to help strengthen world-leading cardiovascular disease research.

Provided through BHF’s Research Excellence Awards scheme, the funding will support research environments that encourage collaboration, inclusion and innovation to accelerate lifesaving breakthroughs.

Affecting around 7.6 million people in the UK, cardiovascular disease is a term for conditions that affect the heart or circulation, including high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and vascular dementia.

The nine universities to receive part of the funding include Imperial College London (ICL), King’s College London (KCL), the University of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Oxford and University College London.

For the next five years, the funding will enable cutting-edge research to address some of the biggest cardiovascular disease challenges, including regenerative medicine to prevent and treat heart failure, improving diagnosis using artificial intelligence, the impact of health inequalities, genes and the risk of heart disease, vascular dementia, the role of the immune system in heart disease and how type 2 diabetes can lead to heart failure.

Researchers from ICL aim to examine heart and blood vessel diseases, as well as wearable sensors, including smartwatches, to contribute to the creation of ‘digital twins’ to reflect individual’s cardiovascular function as an early intervention to potentially predict disease onset and progression or reduce the severity of cardiovascular disease.

The award to KCL will help to improve the understanding of heart failure management and treatment, bringing together an interdisciplinary team to tackle major research challenges in heart failure, including developing new treatments and improving personalisation therapy.

BHF chief scientific and medical officer, professor Bryan Williams, commented: “We’re delighted to announce this record funding to enable researchers to address the biggest challenges in cardiovascular disease research.

“This funding will attract the brightest talent, power cutting-edge science, and unlock lifesaving discoveries that can turn the tide on the devastation caused by heart and circulatory diseases.”