10 Jun 19. BHF Fellowship Award

Many congratulations to Dr Adriana Tavares, who was awarded BHF Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship.

BHF Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship on “Myocardial fibrosis and left ventricular remodelling in cardiovascular disease” (£847,380)

Facts about heart attacks

In the UK every 5 minutes someone is admitted to a hospital due to a heart attack. 70% of these patients survive, and their hearts initiate the remodelling process. Fibrosis and inflammation are two key factors that impact this remodelling process.

Unfortunately, there are no suitable clinical biomarkers for regional, longitudinal and non-invasive quantification of fibrosis and inflammation activity in the healing myocardium.

Seeking a solution

Dr Tavares intends to address this issue of no suitable clinical biomarkers, by developing 3 novel Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging biomarkers for imaging of the extracellular matrix degradation and development, as well as in vivo inflammation. PET imaging is uniquely placed to address this challenge, as it allows for highly selective and sensitive quantification of disease activity.

Award of this fellowship and the translation of its results to the clinic will enable better patient stratification, better disease prognosis and better assessment of treatment efficacy post myocardial infarction, thus improving patient outcomes.

Adriana's research activities

Over the past 5 years, Adriana has successfully established and led Edinburgh’s BHF-funded preclinical PET lab, radiometabolite lab and the recently installed autoradiography lab.

She has also independently spearheaded a programme of new radiotracer development in Edinburgh.

Her research group has expanded from 1 PhD student in 2016, to 5 PhD students, 2 post-docs and 2 technicians in 2019.

Since 2015 and including this recent fellowship award from the BHF, Adriana has secured close to £1.6M in grant funding as PI and an additional £1.9M as co-investigator.

I am delighted to have received this BHF fellowship, which will allow me to fully cement my research independence as a leader in the field of PET biomarker development.