Search Results for: heart disease

Noël hypothesis: my life as a medical statistician

This festive period Three Wise Women from the Faculty of Medicine will be giving us the gift of their wisdom.

Our final wise woman, director of the School of Public Health Professor Deborah Ashby, shares her joy of medical statistics, from working in neonatal research to taking on the Royal Statistical Society presidency. 

“We Three Queens of Orient are…” came the dulcet sounds in the lead-up to Christmas. I looked up across the old Liverpool maternity ward, to see three colleagues singing and, channelling Morecambe and Wise, dancing towards me and my newborn daughter. The three women who had come to visit were all, like me, lecturers in medical statistics at the University of Liverpool, and that memory still brings a smile.

Although it was less glamorous than the alternatives, I’d chosen to give birth there, reasoning that if it went well, it didn’t matter where I was, but if not, I’d rather be somewhere with wide experience, actively engaged with and informed by research. In Liverpool, I had worked with the academic doctors from that maternity hospital, so knew I would get both. You might wonder why they had sought my advice, but research on babies involves analysing complex data on them, or designing studies to test competing treatments or strategies – all of which needs statistical skills along with clinical input. (more…)

World AIDS Day at 30: where are we in the fight against HIV/AIDS?

World AIDS Day 2018

Dr Kirk Taylor looks back at over 30 years of the HIV epidemic, from the advent of preventative therapy to the impact of HIV stigma that continues to plague forgotten populations.

Thirty years on from the first World AIDS Day we have seen enormous global progress towards ending the epidemic. The change that has happened within my lifetime is astonishing; HIV has gone from being a death sentence to a manageable condition with strategies to prevent transmission altogether. This World AIDS Day, I highlight the milestones achieved and where there is still work to do. (more…)

Survival of the fitness: from Ancient Greece to modern day preventive medicine

With London’s biggest running event of the year upon us, sport-expert Tim Grove gives a low down on the benefits of running for a healthy heart. 

Is physical activity good for us?

London Marathon – the biggest sporting spectacle of the year – is fast approaching. This Sunday will see over 40,000 runners take part in the gruelling 26.2-mile course starting at Blackheath and finishing in front of Buckingham Palace. The event is highly televised with elite runners, celebrities, politicians and fundraisers all taking part together. The London Marathon has gained popularity since its inception in 1981 and has raised over £450 million for charity, making it the world’s largest annual fundraising event. With its high media profile, the London Marathon certainly sparks the enthusiasm of the general public with many taking to streets in the bid to train for next year’s event or for shorter distance races. (more…)

Do we need to think differently about COPD?

COPD
The internal structure of the lungs by Dave Farnham (CC BY 4.0)

Ann Morgan, a PhD student at the National Heart and Lung Institute, gives us her thoughts on why smoking isn’t the only culprit behind the rise in COPD. 

The traditional view of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is that it is a self-inflicted disease caused by smoking. However, it is increasingly likely that this description is something of an oversimplification. While still very much associated with smoking, clinicians and researchers alike are getting to grips with the reality that COPD is a more complex and heterogeneous disease than previously thought. We are also becoming more aware of the fact that it is a disease which rarely occurs in isolation. The vast majority of people who present with COPD have at least one other co-existing disease or condition, and around 50% have four or more accompanying chronic diseases or ‘comorbidities’. (more…)

Cracking the genetic code of cardiomyopathy in Egyptians

In the post, PhD student Mona Allouba, calls for a better understanding of the genetics of Egyptians in a bid for personalised treatments for cardiomyopathy patients

Over the past decade, several institutions in Egypt have been making huge scientific progress that is steadily reaching worldwide recognition. It is under these circumstances that I have been fortunate to join the Magdi Yacoub Foundation (MYF), which is recognised as one of Egypt’s most prominent charity organisations. The Aswan Heart Centre – located along the banks of the Nile in Aswan – is an integral part of MYF, offering state-of-the-art medical services for the underprivileged. It focuses on expanding the research on heart disease across the Middle East and beyond to contribute to the world’s scientific knowledge. (more…)

Death of a cell: the vital process of tidying up cell debris to prevent blood clots

In this post, Dr Anusha Seneviratne breaks down the conundrum of cell death and how this process protects our bodies from blood clots.

Your cells die every day. Don’t worry, your body is protecting itself. In a process known as apoptosis or programmed cell death, cells that are no longer needed commit suicide. Some cells are only required for a short time, they may be infected by a virus or develop harmful cancerous mutations. Cell death is also an essential part of development from an embryo. For example, mouse paws begin as spade-like structures and only form the individual digits as the cells in between die. During apoptosis the cells fragment into smaller apoptotic bodies, and their cell surface is flipped open to display lipid molecules called phosphatidylserines, which act as an ‘eat me’ signal to recruit cells called macrophages to engulf them, before their contents spill out and damage the surrounding tissue. This is a process known as efferocytosis. (more…)

The Pathology Museum’s top treasures

Pathology museum

Tucked away in Charing Cross Hospital is Imperial’s best-kept secret: The Pathology Museum. Housing a 2,500-strong collection of anatomical specimens, the Pathology Museum contains some rare and unique artefacts dating from 1888, including the first hysterectomy performed in England.

Carefully curated by the Human Anatomy Unit (HAU), the specimens are grouped together based on organ systems, creating a well-arranged display of human pathology. The museum’s primary function is to help educate medical and biomedical students to diagnose diseases. The museum also hosts a number of conference and short courses in pathology for experienced professionals.

The collection incorporates specimens from across the Faculty of Medicine’s founding medical schools, there are an astonishing 4,000 further specimens not on display. This vast archive provides a snapshot of the historical foundations of the medical school. (more…)

The magic of crystallography

Light micrograph (LM) of Insulin crystals

Originally published in the Imperial Magazine in June 2017, Professor Naomi Chayen explains why, when it comes to medicine, crystals may indeed have magical properties.

To grow a crystal used to be considered a kind of magic. Perhaps that’s because crystals are so beautiful: it is easy to understand why so many people are fascinated by them and believe that they bring good fortune, or have healing powers. And yes, they do have powers. Crystallise a substance – a protein, for example – and you can understand its structure. We prize diamonds for their beauty: I prize protein crystals for their potential power to unlock new treatments, in everything from cancer to diabetes. They are my diamonds.
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COVID and lung health: patient experience and what comes next?

The pandemic has been a huge challenge for people with lung disease – Dr Nick Hopkinson outlines what needs to change to provide them with the required support.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a double impact on people with lung disease – both the impact of the condition itself as well as measures to avoid it on individuals and the impact on access to healthcare. COVID-19 is a respiratory infection, with people with COPD and severe asthma among those who are the most vulnerable. Many people with these conditions have spent a year shielding to avoid it.

Data from patient surveys by the Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation Partnership early in the pandemic found high levels of anxiety, with four key themes emerging from survey responses:

  • Individuals’ vulnerability to COVID-19,
  • Worrying what the experience of contracting COVID-19 would be like,
  • Uncertainty about the future,
  • The inadequacy of government response.

Many patients reported that their care had been disrupted, with reduced support available and face to face appointments replaced by remote options. (more…)

A week in the life of a Clinical Research Fellow

Dr Francesca Conway takes us through a typical week as a clinical research fellow and how her previous time at Imperial contributed to her developing an interest in a career in clinical academia.

Monday

6am. I’m awakened by the horrifically jolly alarm tone on my phone. It’s still dark, it’s still raining, and it’s still cold. Hedgehogs have the right idea hibernating over winter, I think, as I haul myself out of bed.  Must consider this hibernation proposition in my next supervisor meeting. 1 shower, 1 yoghurt and 3 smoothies later and I’m in the hospital.

Today I have a patient coming to see if she is eligible to be recruited to the clinical trial which forms part of my PhD. Mrs X has travelled from 300 miles away. She greets me with a smile and tells me how pleased she is to be here. I immediately remember why I love my job, and scrap the idea of hibernation. I offer her a coffee, she gratefully accepts and whispers, could I have an extra shot in that? I assume she means coffee. I wonder what time she woke up, but am pretty sure it was before 6am.

I am researching a potential new treatment for Chronic Cbstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) for my PhD. Mrs X suffers with COPD, a disease affecting the lungs most commonly caused by smoking. More than 3 million people die from it each year. Targeted Lung Denervation or “TLD”, is a non-surgical procedure where we deliver energy to the airways using a system made by Nuvaira, a US-based company. The idea is that the energy disrupts the nerve supply to the lungs, so the airways relax and open. With initial data looking promising, we hope that this will lead to improvements in health for patients like Mrs X. More information on the Airflow website. (more…)