Research excellence at the University of Edinburgh

Research Excellence (round2) - University of Edinburgh

In 2008 the BHF began a £34 million investment strategy to support four top UK universities as BHF Centres of Research Excellence, aiming to secure the UK’s future as a world-leading force in heart research. One of these institutions was the University of Edinburgh, which received £7.6 million from the BHF to establish the Edinburgh BHF Centre of Research Excellence (CRE). Led by Professor John Mullins, the Centre now has an international reputation in basic and clinical science and a well-supported environment that attracts scientists to heart research. With a focus on cardiovascular risk factors, the outward-looking Centre has developed new techniques and models to study heart disease. Edinburgh scientists have worked with international experts to image zebrafish hearts and use them to test drugs, whilst CRE physicists and chemists helped develop innovative imaging for several conditions, including aortic aneurysm. A new hub of bioinformatics is deciphering vast amounts of information to uncover how genes are important in heart disease. Edinburgh’s multidisciplinary ethos is already helping move discoveries to the clinic – one of their recent successes includes a novel way to screen for atherosclerotic plaque rupture, which is likely to have a major clinical impact. Over the next five years, Edinburgh will accelerate the translation of lab discoveries into the clinic. They will dissect novel pathways of disease to reveal new treatments, and develop current and new technologies to do this. Their network of world-leading participants in the Centre will expand and scientists will have the opportunity to train in partner labs. This BHF award will transform Edinburgh into a major international hub providing world-class research and training in heart science.