Research at the Foundation for Circulatory Health

This research theme focuses on improving the care of patients with blocked or narrowed heart arteries. The team studies how to detect coronary disease earlier, choose the best treatments, and monitor recovery more effectively. By connecting advanced imaging, physiology, and patient outcomes, their work helps clinicians make more personalised decisions for every individual.

High blood pressure remains one of the biggest global health challenges. The FFCH hypertension team has led landmark studies such as the ASCOT trial, which changed how blood pressure is treated around the world. Their ongoing research explores new medicines, lifestyle approaches, and educational programmes to help people better understand and manage their blood pressure.

This group focuses on how inflammation and immune responses contribute to the build-up of plaques in the arteries. Their work aims to find early warning signs of artery disease and develop new treatments to stop it before it causes heart attacks or strokes. By combining laboratory discoveries with clinical insight, they are moving closer to more personalised ways of preventing heart disease.

By blending mathematics, engineering, and medical science, this team builds innovative ways to understand and diagnose heart disease. This group is developing artificial intelligencetechniques to automatically analyse ultrasound heart scans, improving accuracy and reducing waiting times. The group also develops advanced mathematical models to improve the design of research studies.

This theme explores how blood flows through the heart's arteries and how small changes in circulation can signal early heart problems. The team combines clinical research with artificial intelligence to create smarter and faster diagnostic tools. Their most influential achievement - the instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR) - is now used worldwide to guide treatment in people with narrowed heart arteries, helping doctors decide when stents are truely needed.