(Press-News.org) New research funding will investigate the early stages of heart disease associated with chronic kidney disease led by the University of Birmingham.
Dr Davor Pavlovic will lead an international research team after receiving almost £300,000 from the British Heart Foundation to understand the mechanisms driving the early stages of CKD-associated cardiomyopathy.
The research approach will allow detailed investigation of cellular and electrophysiological changes before irreversible damage to the heart occurs. Researchers will also test whether in the setting of CKD, early treatment can reverse or prevent heart disease.
The research will be conducted by a multidisciplinary team of scientists and clinicians, including Professor Jonathan Townend, Professor Charles Ferro, Dr Rowan Hardy, Professor Katja Gehmlich, Dr Sophie Broadway-Stringer and Dr Davor Pavlovic, from the University of Birmingham, alongside Dr Nathan Tucker from SUNY Upstate Medical University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Dr Davor Pavlovic, Associate Professor in Cardiovascular Sciences at the University of Birmingham said:
“Our aim is to uncover the mechanisms driving early cardiac dysfunction and arrhythmia in CKD, providing critical insights into preventative therapies. Reversing established damage is incredibly challenging, so identifying interventions that work in the earliest stages of disease is key to improving outcomes for CKD patients.”
The findings from this study have the potential to transform clinical approaches to CKD-related cardiovascular disease by highlighting the importance of early intervention to prevent life-threatening cardiac events.
CKD affects approximately 10–15% of the global population and significantly increases the risk of heart failure and sudden cardiac death. These risks escalate as kidney function declines, often leading to profound cardiac changes such as fibrosis, structural remodelling, and arrhythmias.
The British Heart Foundation is biggest independent funder of heart and circulatory research in the UK, funding ground breaking research that can save and improve lives. This award underscores University of Birmingham’s leading role in this critical area of investigation.
END
University of Birmingham researchers awarded grant to tackle early-stage heart disease in chronic kidney disease
2025-01-14
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Researchers harness AI to predict cardiovascular risk from CT scans
2025-01-14
CLEVELAND—Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals and Houston Methodist will harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to more accurately predict risk of heart failure and other cardiovascular events, including estimating when an adverse event might occur, by developing an AI model that “learns” from patient scans.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, claiming over 17 million lives every year, according to the American Heart Association. Accurately ...
Samsung takes top spot in U.S. patents for third year running while TSMC rises into second place; after four-year falloff, grants increase nearly 4%
2025-01-14
New Haven, Conn., Jan. 14, 2025—After four years of decline, U.S. patent grants headed upward, rising 3.8 percent from calendar year 2023 to 324,043 and Samsung retained the top spot for the third year in a row, according to IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, the world’s most trusted patent data source.
IFI CLAIMS Patent Services is a Digital Science company that compiles and tracks data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and other patent-issuing agencies around the globe. IFI translates its world-leading data into an annual U.S. Top 50 and ...
HKU ecologist highlights critical gaps in global wildlife trade monitoring
2025-01-14
Wildlife trade poses one of the greatest threats to the survival of numerous species. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) at least 50,000 species are involved in trade. However, while this figure already seems huge, it risks overlooking less traditional sectors of wildlife trade, such as the pet or fashion trade. For instance, recent data shows that the number of butterflies traded exceeds the total number of terrestrial arthropods in the IPBES assessment. This raises a critical question: How many ...
Smoking may lead people to earn less
2025-01-14
A new paper in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, finds that smoking has a negative effect on earnings among younger workers. This is particularly true among the less well educated.
The adverse health effects of smoking are well known. Smoking increases the risk of various cancers, respiratory issues, and cardiovascular diseases, with approximately 14% of all deaths in 2019 attributed to smoking. Despite smoking rates declining since the 1990s, in 2019 18% of women and 27% of men in high income countries still smoked.
Tobacco smoking has ...
Hiroshima flooding: A case study of well usage and adaptive governance
2025-01-14
Society is often vulnerable to disasters, but how humans manage during and after can turn devastation into opportunities for improved resilience.
For instance, private wells are attracting attention as an alternative resource for securing water for daily use and consumption in the event the water supply is cut off after a disaster. However, there are few records on how wells are used in the confusion of disasters, so detailed research is needed to promote the use of emergency wells.
Professor Takahiro Endo of the Graduate School of Sustainable System Sciences at Osaka Metropolitan University conducted a survey on the use ...
New survey finds over half of Americans are unaware that bariatric surgery can improve fertility
2025-01-14
St. Petersburg, Fla - Welcoming a newborn is something many couples dream of doing, but it can get complicated when conceiving becomes a roadblock. Infertility affects one in six people, but obesity can also be a problem. When diet and exercise aren’t enough to lose weight, bariatric surgery can become an option. Yet a new national survey by Orlando Health finds that 56% of Americans do not know that bariatric surgery is an effective way to improve fertility.
“Every day we have more patients ...
World’s oldest 3D map discovered
2025-01-14
Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin.
The Ségognole 3 rock shelter, known since the 1980s for its artistic engravings of two horses in a Late Palaeolithic style on either side of a female pubic figuration, has now been revealed to contain a miniature representation of the surrounding landscape.
Dr Anthony Milnes from the University of Adelaide’s School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, participated in the research ...
Metabolomics-driven approaches for identifying therapeutic targets in drug discovery
2025-01-14
This review is led by Professor. Tengfei Xu (Research Center for Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University) and Professor. Su Zeng (Research Center for Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University). The author emphasizes metabolomics’ critical role in advancing our understanding of disease mechanisms and accelerating targeted drug development, while acknowledging current challenges in the field.
Metabolomics, as a powerful tool, can captures phenotypic changes induced by exogenous compounds, offering a valuable ...
Applications of ultrafast nano-spectroscopy and nano-imaging
2025-01-14
Optical microscopy has long been a fundamental tool for scientific discovery. Yet, traditional far-field techniques are limited by diffraction, restricting their resolution to hundreds of nanometers, which can be inadequate for capturing phenomena in quantum and solid-state materials. With the emergence of tip-based microscopy capable of achieving atomic-scale spatial resolution, near-field optical nano-spectroscopy and nano-imaging have evolved into versatile tools for characterizing the optical properties of materials at the nanoscale. When further combined with ultrafast pump-probe ...
Study links PFAS contamination of drinking water to a range of rare cancers
2025-01-14
Communities exposed to drinking water contaminated with manufactured chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) experience up to a 33% higher incidence of certain cancers, according to new research from the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and just published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, is the first to examine cancer and PFAS contamination of drinking water in the U.S.
PFAS, which are used in consumer products such as furniture and food packaging, have been found in about 45% of drinking water supplies across the United States. ...