PEOPLE - APPOINTMENTS

Nick Holden, newly appointed to the Biomedical Research Informatics Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences.

New Database Officer at Health Research Centre

Centre to advance heart disease research and treatments

05 January 2010

The University of Leicester and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust have appointed Nick Holden as the Senior Database Officer for the Biomedical Research Informatics Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences (BRICCS) at Glenfield Hospital.

The Biomedical Research Unit (BRU) is a £5.5 million national research centre for heart disease, funded by the National Institute of Health Research. More than 100 doctors and scientists will be involved in research at the new centre. Key strands of research will include the genetics and inheritance of heart disease, high blood pressure and the introduction of new treatments including different types of cardiac stents.

Nick will be responsible for developing and maintaining the computing platform for BRICCS, a system for linking NHS care with ongoing research, recruiting patients with a broad spectrum of cardiovascular disease, and using NHS data systems to support research projects conducted within the BRU. The BRICCS system will manage data within computing networks managed by both the UHL and the University, and provide a unique link between the two.

Previously Nick has worked in the NHS as audit co-ordinator for the Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project for the Coronary Care Units within UHL, as Practice Manager for Dr Keith Baker and Partners at Wigston Central Surgery, and as a freelance web and informatics consultant.

Nick brings a breadth of understanding of IT systems and informatics principles and experience in delivery of informatics to a range of healthcare and related contexts. Particular experience in the application of open source software development and open standards will enable Nick to support the introduction of standards-compliant systems to support future integration of the BRICCS tools with wider NHS and research applications.

Conditions to be studied within the new unit include coronary artery disease, acute coronary syndromes, heart failure, hypertension, valve disease, dysrhythmias, embolism, strokes, peripheral vascular disease and aneurysms. Plasma/serum and DNA/RNA will be stored for future analyses of protein/chemical biomarkers, genetic composition and RNA analyses. This information will enable an in-depth examination of disease mechanisms in this cohort. This observational cohort project will also link future mortality and hospitalization events with these protein and DNA analyses. It will be possible to generate optimal diagnostic and prognostic algorithms for a broad spectrum of cardiovascular disease, enabling further testing of any hypotheses generated from these observations.