Like everyone around the world, the Hatter Cardiovascular Institute (HCI) at UCL is navigating how best to work and stay engaged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though having to close our laboratories & clinical areas temporarily, and now working remotely, we have established bi-weekly team meetings to continue our research programmes…and importantly to keep in touch with one another while apart! The team has been great discovering new ways to work to continue collaborations and on-going educational programmes.

The Clinical Fellows, Nurses, and Cardiologists at the HCI have all been released from their research programmes to contribute their skills to the immense clinical needs of the NHS at this difficult time. We cannot thank them enough for their dedication and sacrifice in helping to look after the health of the nation.

Despite not being physically together, the team at the HCI are still active in their research pursuits and we hope to be back in our labs continuing our work as soon as possible.

The passing of Professor Lionel Opie last month was a huge loss to the cardiovascular research community. The Lancet has honoured his life and many achievements in its recent publication, read his obituary HERE.

We are pleased to announce Dr Arjun Ghosh has been awarded Board Certification (Level 3 accreditation) in Cardio-Oncology by the International Cardio-Oncology Society. Dr Ghosh is one of the first in the world to accomplish this and confirms his place as a leader in the field of Cardio-Oncology.

All of us at the Hatter Cardiovascular Institute congratulate Dr Ghosh on this achievement and are so fortunate to have him as part of our team.

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Professor Lionel Opie, who together with Professor Derek Yellon, co-founded the Hatter Institute at the University of Cape Town. We have lost a great mentor and wonderful man, a highly respected clinician-scientist who dedicated his life to being at the heart of research.  We also worked very closely on our long standing educational programme “Cardiology, Diabetes & nephrology at the Limits” which is now in its 22nd year. To honour his many contributions to cardiovascular research we shall be having a named Lionel Opie lecture at this years’ meeting in April.

After 19 years, Dr Willem Remme has stepped down as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy. Upon reflection of the hundreds of papers which have crossed his desk, Dr Remme highlighted a selection of his top publications. (read editorial HERE)

The Hatter Cardiovascular Institute was honoured to be singled out as one of the most highly cited articles: NECROSTATIN, A POTENTIALLY CARDIOPROTECTIVE AGENT (DEREK YELLON, 200 CITES

Dr Remme commented on the many special publications of the journal and gave special attention to Prof Sean Davidson’s editorial: BUILDING A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE OF CARDIOVASCULAR DRUGS AND THERAPY.

We wish to thank Dr Remme for all his hard work as Editor-in Chief of CDT and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.

The Hatter Cardiovascular Institute recently hosted a series of medical educational meetings to discuss new developments in the management of diabetes & cardiovascular disease. Audiences included researchers, primary care physicians and specialists clinicians. An area of interest was the new therapeutic agents including SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 analogues.

The 2 Horizon series of meetings addressed diabetes management from multi-disciplinary perspectives bringing together Nephrology, Cardiology and Diabetology for comprehensive discussions. One meeting was held specifically for an audience of Primary Care Physicians while a second was directed to Specialist Clinicians.

Recognising the importance of informing clinical trainees early in their careers, a newly created series of Hatter Institute Scientific Meetings was created to address this need. Therefor in a  third meeting, Trainees (SpR’s) in the specialities of Nephrology, Diabetes and Cardiology were invited to attend and found the day both beneficial to their area of interest but also for the ability to network with their colleagues in other disciplines who they might not otherwise meet, stimulating future multi-disciplinary teams.

Feedback from the above meetings was very positive and will help to guide further meetings later this year. We are grateful that those attending found these workshops so informative. We strive to create engaging programmes to disseminate the latest developments to benefit working practice and knowledge amongst the medical community.

Feedback reports from each of the 3 meetings can be found below:

HATTER HORIZON MEETING FEEDBACK REPORT_CLINICIAN_DEC19

HATTER HORIZON MEETING FEEDBACK REPORT_GP__DEC19

HATTER SCIENTIFIC MEETING FEEDBACK REPORT_TRAINEE_JAN20

Dates for upcoming Horizon and Hatter Scientific Workshops will be announced shortly.

The Hatter Cardiovascular Institute is at the forefront of cardio-oncology research. With awareness of the detrimental effects chemotherapy has on a patient’s heart, this rapidly evolving field of medicine aims to develop new methods to detect cardiovascular damage and subsequently provide protection during treatment.

We are pleased to congratulate one of our leading Cardio-Oncology Consultants, Dr Arjun Ghosh, on his recent accomplishments in leading the national and global education and training initiatives in this area. These include:

*Newly appointed member of the International Cardio-Oncology Society Training and Education Advisory Committee

*Lead –  British Society of Echocardiography guidelines in Cardio-Oncology

*Lead – UK Cardio-Oncology curriculum design

*Lead – Education and Training at the British Cardio-Oncology Society

*Lead – UK’s first and only national Cardio-Oncology Course which has now become a BCS course

*Organiser – Europe’s first and only Cardio-Oncology Course

*Member – ESC Council of Cardio-Oncology

Dr Ghosh recently visited the Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata, a tertiary cancer centre of excellence providing care to patients across India, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. With a cardio-oncology service in early development, Dr Ghosh was pleased for the opportunity to assist in the education and training to the team there as they work towards establishing a more permanent clinical service. Details of this visit can be seen HERE.

To promote continued progress in Cardio-Oncology, Dr Ghosh leads on clinical trials, participates in multidisciplinary committees and presents regularly across the UK and internationally.

UCL and the Wellington Hospital are recruiting to a Fellowship scheme in which Fellows study for a PhD in the UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science while working at the UK’s largest private hospital providing specialist complex care.

Fellows register part-time at UCL and the Wellington pays their salary (£45,000 pa), the annual fees which will include a budget for consumables and activities. In return the Fellows are employed directly by the Hospital, working the equivalent of 30 hours per week.

Clinically the Fellows will be based at the Wellington Hospital in St. John’s Wood, London while the academic work will be based within the Institute of Cardiovascular Science, UCL.

We welcome all applicants who are medically qualified, GMC registered and have MRCP. The scheme is open only to UK/EEA nationals due to funding restrictions.

To apply, please visit one of the links below:

UCL

JOBS.AC.UK

Closes: 9th February 2020

Start Date: October 2020

2019 has been another successful year for post graduate students at the Hatter Cardiovascular Institute (HCI). This year 3 PhD’s and 1 MD(Res) were awardee to members of the HCI. This brings the total number of higher degrees emanating from the HCI to 70.

The Hatter Cardiovascular Institute is pleased to congratulation the following recipients from 2019:

Dr Stasa Taferner  PhD – An investigation into the role of the CXCR7 chemokine receptor in acute MI and angiogenesis.

Dr Idris Harding PhD – Determinants of Reperfusion Injury in the Diabetic Heart

Dr Kaloyan Takov PhD – Cardioprotective & proangiogenic activities of small exosomes released by amniotic fluid stem cells.

 Dr Ashraf Hamarneh MD(res) – The effect of RIC and glyceryl trinitrate on perioperative myocardial injury in CABG patients.

Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy has published their list of top ranking highest cited 2016-2017 articles for the impact factor year 2018. The Hatter Cardiovascular Institute was recognised with 2 papers on this list, attesting to the novel research and continuing contribution to cardiovascular scientific knowledge of our team.

The papers of note are:

Anthracycline Chemotherapy and Cardiotoxicity, J.V. McGowan, R. Chung, A. Maulik, I. Piotrowska, M.J. Walker, D.M. Yellon, Issue 31:1 (2017)

Total Citations: 101            Citations 2018: 51

 Exosomes and Cardiovascular Protection, S.M. Davidson, K. Takov, D.M. Yellon, Issue 31:1 (2017)

Total Citations: 23            Citations 2018: 14

 Many congratulations to our team for this recognition of their ongoing hard work.