The BHF Butler Senior Clinical Research Fellowship. High-sensitivity cardiac troponin and coronary heart disease
Professor Nicholas Mills has been awarded a prestigious fellowship – the BHF Butler Senior Clinical Research Fellowship – to find new ways to identify people with coronary artery disease and to pinpoint those most at risk of a heart attack. Although we know the factors that increase heart attack risk, such as smoking and high cholesterol, it can be tricky to identify people at risk because of underlying coronary artery disease (CAD) as current methods to diagnose CAD are imprecise. This means doctors could prescribe unnecessary treatments, or could fail to identify those who are at high risk of a heart attack so they miss out on the treatments they need. In this project, Professor Mills will test a new, more personalised approach to assess heart risk that uses a highly sensitive blood test that measures a protein called troponin. Troponin is released when the heart muscle is damaged and is already used to detect people who have had a heart attack. In this project, he will find out whether blood troponin levels can also identify people with silent or stable coronary artery disease, and if troponin levels reflect heart health. If successful, this research will help doctors better identify and treat people with coronary artery disease before they have a heart attack. It could potentially lead to troponin testing being used as widely as cholesterol testing and the electrocardiogram to assess and monitor heart and circulatory disease risk.
Project details
| Grant amount | £1,314,711 |
|---|---|
| Grant type | Fellowships |
| Application type | Senior Clinical Research Fellowship |
| Start Date | 02 February 2016 |
| Duration | 5 years |
| Reference | FS/16/14/32023 |
| Status | In Progress |
