Nilesh Samani is the British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiology, University of Leicester.

Very few families are not touched in one way or another by heart disease. In the East Midlands we have a higher than average rate of heart disease than in the UK. This is due to many factors including socio-economic factors, as well as the fact that heart disease is more common in South Asians. Heart and circulatory disease is the UK’s biggest killer. More than 175,000 people die of cardiovascular diseases each year, more than 50,000 prematurely. Despite these grim statistics, through research, there has been remarkable progress in the prevention, management and treatment of cardiovascular diseases in the last 30 years. Research in Leicester has made a significant contribution.

Our ground-breaking studies include:

• Having laid the foundation for treating coronary artery disease in many patients with stents rather than bypass surgery;
• Finding the best way of treating high blood pressure;
• Finding the appropriate pacemaker to put in elderly patientswhose hearts are beating too slowly;
• Developing new operative techniques to reduce risk of stroke;
• Pioneering genetic research to understand why many cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks run in families.

New Biomedical Research Unit

We were the first centre in the UK to replace a narrowed aortic valve without open heart surgery and more recently the first world-wide to test a robotic system for treating rhythm disturbances of the heart. The excellence of cardiovascular research in Leicester has been recognised by the award of a Biomedical Research Unit in Cardiovascular Disease by the Department of Health, to a partnership of the University of  Leicester and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.

This has allowed us to establish a state-of-the-art clinical facility in Glenfield Hospital to see and  investigate both patients and healthy volunteers participating in our research.

New Cardiovascular Research Centre

The purpose of the new Cardiovascular Research Centre being built at Glenfield Hospital is to complement the Biomedical  Research Unit and provide additional space for laboratory research. It will enable all scientists and clinicians to be based on the same site and closer to patients, attract new researchers to come to Leicester, and allow us to establish new and advanced research techniques and tackle new research questions. For example, how to minimise the damage to the heart after a heart attack. Whether we can prevent the development of hypertension rather than just treat it or reduce the risk of sudden death from a fatal rhythm disturbance in patients with a damaged heart, and whether we can use genetic tests to better identify which individuals will benefit most from prevention measures. One of the exciting aspects of the centre is that we will use state-of-the-art computing facilities to link clinical information collected on patients attending hospital to laboratory findings on samples they provide for our research, so we can more comprehensively investigate the causes of cardiovascular diseases.

The centre will benefit patients by taking the research and new treatments and diagnostic tests from the laboratory bench to their bedsides more quickly. Leicester has an enviable record in cardiovascular research and the new centre will consolidate our position as a leader in the UK and the world.

To return to the Leicester Cardiovascular Research Centre Appeal page click here.