Join our institution to work on disease pathology and patient impact, and get support from local, national and international collaborators to deliver research that changes lives.
Read below to find out more about your new home of research or get in touch with a Cardiovascular Health professor today.
For an informal discussion about Cardiovascular Health research at Manchester Metropolitan, please contact Professor Tristan McKay.
This is a hugely dynamic research environment. There's been huge investment in bioscience, supporting research spanning cell biology to whole person health.Professor Tristan McKay
Our research strength
Cardiovascular health research is led by Manchester Metropolitan’s Centre for Bioscience in the Department of Life Sciences, part of the Faculty of Science and Engineering.
We are one of the largest research-led science and technology educators in the UK, and we’re proud to be the only UK university that trains healthcare scientists all the way from associate practitioners to consultant clinicians.
Our University is home to a diverse and collegiate community of academics and professional services whose partnerships with NHS Foundation Trusts are delivering clinical interventions that address some of the most widespread diseases affecting the population.
And following REF 2021, we rank 15th in the UK for the power of research in Allied Health. We’re also investing £115m in our campus, introducing a host of new scientific facilities such as extensive bioscience labs with three new cell culture suites, an imaging core with super-resolution confocal microscopes, and a flow cytometry core with cell sorting facilities.
Vascular biology research
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity in the UK, and it’s particularly prevalent in the North West where heart attacks, strokes and vascular dementia contribute to poor health outcomes.
Our research is carried out in partnership with health and social care professionals as well as regional communities, and it utilises DNA sequencing, complex cell models, wearable technologies and imaging to study the effects of diet, exercise, environment and the gut microbiome on cardiovascular health. Our vascular biology research is focused around:
Vascular calcification: Novel biomarkers and potential treatments are being developed to combat the pathological effects of the vascular mineralisation process.
Thrombosis: Investigating the pathological processes of platelet activation in different high-risk patient populations is helping us to identify novel antithrombotic drug targets, develop stratified approaches to prevent disease, and create more personalised treatment approaches.
Plaque erosion: We use in vitro cell models to recapitulate these conditions to study plaque erosion and the makeup of the underlying extracellular matrix that encourages platelet adherence.
Cardiovascular physiology: We use ex vivo approaches to investigate the mechanisms that underpin heart attacks and strokes and explore therapeutic intervention strategies to alleviate their adverse consequences.
Renovascular biology: We work with clinicians at the Northern Care Alliance NHS FT to identify new biomarkers of early CKD. We have identified a profile of microRNA expression in early stage patients that could act as an effective CKD marker profile.