In our last round of clinical grants, nearly £300,000 was awarded to the following projects in the Clinical grant category

Click here to find out more about Clinical Grants.

University of Aberdeen

£65,020 | 24 months

Most heart attacks are caused by clots forming in the blood vessels of the heart. The drug Clopidogrel is commonly prescribed to people who have had a heart attack. Like aspirin, Clopidogrel works by reducing the stickiness of platelets, tiny cells that help the blood to form clots. This study expects to find out if stopping Clopidogrel after a short course of treatment is safe, and blood returns to normal, or if there are adverse changes in the blood associated with stopping. This information will help doctors to decide whether stopping Clopidogrel is likely to leave patients at any increased risk of blood clots and increased risk of heart attacks. If such evidence is found, this may lead to a multi-centre study to find out if there are some people who should be advised by their doctors to keep taking the medicine for longer.

University of Dundee

£82,776 | 18 months

Vitamin D deficiency is linked to important risk factors for heart and cardiovascular disease. South Asian women living in the UK are at a particularly increased risk of developing cardiovascular problems, compared with the rest of the UK female population. As most of the vitamin D in our body comes from exposure of the skin to sunlight, it is highly likely that South Asian women have especially low levels of vitamin D, due to cultural reasons, such as staying indoors and covering of the skin when outside. The purpose of this project is to determine if giving supplementary levels of vitamin D to UK South Asian women will improve cardiovascular function.

Imperial College, London

£84,859 | 18 months

The aim of the project is to see whether part of the reason for children becoming ill after heart bypass surgery is because some of the bacteria in the gut (which are present in everyone) leak across the gut wall into the bloodstream, amplifying the body’s natural inflammatory response and increasing the risk of organ dysfunction in the first few days after surgery. This can mean that children are sicker and spend a longer time on the intensive care unit to recover from their operation. This project uses a new, rapid method of detecting the endotoxin (bacterial marker) in the blood of children so we can use it to find out who is at risk. This could help us work out who to treat and when. This is a small pilot study that can provide enough information for us to decide if we need to do a bigger clinical trial of new treatments to prevent gut bacteria crossing the gut wall during or after cardiac bypass surgery.

University of Leeds and Leeds General Infirmary

£61,126 | 24 months

Heart attacks remain one of the most common causes of death in the UK, yet relatively little is known about how the human heart responds to a heart attack in the first few days of the event. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) offers the ability to study the heart in great detail. This project aims to identify features of the early response to a heart attack that predict longer-term recovery of the heart. It is hoped that such knowledge will help to identify patients at particular risk of complications following the heart attack and also identify which adverse features of a heart attack should be targeted by future treatments.

Great Ormond Street Hospital

£59,044 | 26 month project

Survival after heart transplantation in childhood is now improving, but there are still concerns about some of the longer term problems that patients have to cope with. One of these is coronary artery disease, where the blood vessels supplying blood to the heart muscle become narrow and in some cases blocked altogether. One of the contributory factors to the development of coronary artery disease is high levels of cholesterol and other fats in the blood. Research with other patient groups has found that diet and exercise programmes can have a positive effect on cholesterol levels and coronary artery disease. This research aims to find out whether giving children who have had heart transplants and their families specific information about the benefits and importance of a healthy diet and regular exercise can have a positive impact on their physical health.

For more information about grants from Heart Research UK please contact us on 0113 297 6203 or email research@heartresearch.org.uk