Centre for Cardiovascular Drug Target Discovery

Centre for cardiovascular drug target discovery

Atherosclerosis is the build-up of fatty plaques in the walls of blood vessels which causes coronary heart disease. Pioneering work by BHF funded scientists is underpinning efforts to identify new medicines that can help control and prevent the condition. In recent years new technologies have led to an upsurge in our understanding of the biological processes underlying disease and pinpointing molecules that might be targeted with medication. But translating this knowledge into effective medicines for patients is a real challenge. At the University of Oxford, plans are underway to establish a unique unit called the Target Discovery Institute (TDI) that will help maximise opportunities to exploit newly identified disease targets by filling a gap between academic biomedical research and the pharmaceutical industry. This BHF award will provide core funding to allow Professor Ratcliffe and other teams at the Oxford BHF Centre of Research Excellence to operate a dedicated facility within the TDI that will focus on identifying and validating targets specifically for cardiovascular disease. Several BHF funded research programmes at Oxford have already identified molecular pathways that contribute to cardiovascular disease and are developing systems that mimic these pathways in cells and can be reliably used to screen potential drug targets. The new team will develop reliable computer-based microscopic screening systems. The systems, that will mimic some of the complex cellular events that take place during heart and circulatory disease, will then be used to test potential targets for treatments. This grant will support dedicated staff within the TDI who will work with heart disease experts to develop and operate standardised screens. They will also train students on a planned doctoral training programme in Cardiovascular Chemical Genetics. The new facility will help focus existing cardiovascular research at Oxford on the discovery of targets for treatment, and build a unique skill-base in the area as well as linking academic discovery research to drug development in the pharmaceutical industry. The initiative should accelerate translation of new knowledge into real benefits for heart patients.