Analysing blood samples from COVID-19 patients who have ongoing heart inflammation, to understand what causes this and to help develop new treatments to protect against heart damage during COVID-19 recovery.
Diagnostic
This project centred around exploring the role of the immune system in long term heart inflammation, within the specific context of COVID-19 infection.
The aims of the project were three-fold, first to identify blood markers of heart inflammation, then understand the mechanism of this inflammation and finally to explore potential drug therapeutic targets.
Using a novel technique known as “spectral cytometry”, the team were able to analyse frozen blood samples from over 200 patients that had contracted a mild form of COVID-19 but had persisting heart-based symptoms.
The main finding of the project was that the loss of a protein called PD-1 was linked to long term inflammation of the heart. Vaccination 6 months after infection partially recovered PD-1 function, with a strong hypothesis that early vaccination could prevent the occurrence of PD-1 loss, and subsequent cardiac inflammation.
This finding presents potential routes for the prevention and treatment of heart inflammation in long COVID.
The development of a new AI-supported model for imaging the heart based on data from over 700 people with atrial fibrillation, allow ablation to be more personalised to individual patients.
A trial for every patient
Personalised angina care
Blood clots in acute coronary syndrome
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