Investigating the potential of a new drug in patients who have experienced a heart attack, aimed at preventing the dangerous cardiac remodelling that often leads to the heart progressing into failure.
Drug discovery / Therapeutics
Heart failure is a major cause of disease and death, thought to affect 1 million people a year in the UK.
One of the underlying causes of heart failure is changes to the hearts structure, known as cardiac remodelling, following a major cardiac event, such as a heart attack.
This research group had previously identified a group of proteins that are part of the “Hippo” pathway that appear to play a significant role in the growth and survival of heart cells under diseased conditions. If these proteins can be regulated, it may allow heart damage to be repaired so that it cannot progress into heart failure. This project focused on a newly identified drug, MRT137, to test whether it could control these proteins in laboratory models.
The overall results showed positive trends towards improved heart function and decreased adverse remodelling.
However, the impacts were small, and further work will be needed to optimise dosing and delivery systems. This study has confirmed MRT137 as a target drug for heart repair and the group has continued their research into the Hippo pathway’s involvement in cardiac remodelling.
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.
Bringing together patients and medical professionals to establish a partnership aimed at identifying areas of priority in adult cardiac surgery, to better inform clinicians and make heart surgery safer for patients.
Developing an AI-assisted computer programme to identify whether a conduction system pacing (CSP) procedure has been successful, which will allow more patients to benefit from this innovative pacemaker technology.
Developing a new test to measure the levels of desmosine in the body, which are higher when there is damage to the aorta, to diagnose aortic dissection more quickly.
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