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| Monterotondo/Harefield/London, 10 April 2006 |
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| Getting to the heart of cardiovascular diseases
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Press
Release 10 April 2006 [PDF]
A new collaboration covers the spectrum from molecules to therapies
Today
three research organisations announce the merging of their
expertise to fight cardiovascular diseases, which are among the
most common health problems and causes of death in the
world. The Magdi Yacoub Institute [MYI] at the UK's
Harefield Heart Science Centre, Imperial College London, and
a unit of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL]
near Rome will work together to connect discoveries in basic
research to new therapies and treatments.
"The medicine of the future will link discoveries about genes
and the body's healing mechanisms to prevention and therapies
for diseases," says Nadia Rosenthal, who heads EMBL's
Mouse Biology Unit in Monterotondo. "With the help of our
transgenic mouse models for heart disease we can investigate
the genes that play a role in the development of heart defects
and this knowledge can then form the basis for clinical studies
with patients."
Sir Magdi Yacoub, founder and Director of Research at the
Harefield Heart Science Centre funded by the MYI is one of
the world's foremost experts in the fields of organ transplantations
and heart research. He established the largest heart and
lung transplantation programme in the world at Harefield
Hospital. The Heart Science Centre, which is operated collaboratively
by the MYI, the Royal Brompton & Harefield
Hospital Trust and the National Heart and Lung Institute at
Imperial College, already has several research groups devoted
to various aspects of heart disease, ranging from molecular
and cell biology up to tissue engineering of heart valves. The
new collaboration arose from contacts between Yacoub and
Rosenthal, who has developed models of heart disease and tissue
regeneration in mice.
"Basic and clinical research have traditionally been quite separate,
and today there's still a considerable gap," Yacoub says.
"Pooling the resources and expertise of our complementary
institutes in this new collaboration we will bridge this gap. In
this way we can obtain the integrated understanding of the
cardiovascular system that we need to transfer what we have
learned about heart diseases in the laboratory to patients as
soon as possible."
The collaboration will initially run for four years and will formalize
joint research projects between the Yacoub and
Rosenthal laboratories. One focus will be to study the molecular
mechanisms that lead to heart failure, in hopes of finding
ways to intervene. Another topic will be to investigate the
molecular and cellular basis of new types of therapies, developed
at the Heart Science Centre, which have been effective in
reversing damage after heart failure. Finally, there will be a
focus on heart transplantation and tissue engineering, aiming
towards regenerative therapies.
Alongside research, the project will promote mutual education
and exchanges of personnel, including a series of interdisciplinary
courses and symposia.
The new collaboration builds on the existing strong connections
between Imperial College London and EMBL. "This new
centre of excellence for biomedical research will strengthen the
close relations between the institutes and leads the way for
many more collaborations in different research areas", says
Professor Stephen Smith, Principal of the Faculty of Medicine
at Imperial College London.
Press Contact
Anna-Lynn Wegener
Press Officer
EMBL
Heidelberg, Germany
Tel: +49 6221 387 8452
E-mail: wegener@embl.de |
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