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28 August 2000
Ambitious plans to address head-on one of Scotland's most damning health problems - heart disease - by establishing an institute dedicated to all aspects of cardiovascular research will be announced this week by the University of Dundee. The proposal is for a Tayside Institute of Cardiovascular Research, with the catchy acronym TICR, to be based at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School. The institute, to be drawn together by the head of the University's Section of Vascular Medicine Professor Jill Belch, will pool the strengths of five leading specialist teams already based at Dundee to take a multi-pronged approach to the problems of heart disease from food and diet to vascular medicine and epidemiology or population studies. A fund raising campaign with a target of £3million - in two phases over three years - is to be launched with a charity ball at the Old Course Hotel, St Andrews on Friday (1 September) which has already proved a sell out. Already Scottish Enterprise Tayside have promised matched funding of £200,000. The institute is expected to create four jobs initially and to grow by some 10 jobs per year over the next five years as the research and volunteer programmes expand in the new dedicated facilities. Said Professor Belch: "Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of death and ill health in Scotland which has some of the worst statistics in the Western world. Here in Dundee we already have some of the best medical and related research with experts in molecular medicine, clinical investigation, clinical pharmacology, health care nutrition and epidemiology. Between them the founding groups involved in the institute have a first class track record, having attracted £7.75 million of research funding since 1996. By bringing all of these together within one institute we will be able to achieve so much more - taking research and new technologies into clinical practice and population interventions. This group will, for the first time in Scotland, bring together expertise to explore any genetic component of cardiovascular disease, its relevance to nutrition, lifestyle, cardiac and vascular function. The unique skill mix of the unit will allow major contributions to health services research. "In addition Dundee has a great resource in its people. Its stable population and excellent record for volunteers ready to participate in studies make Dundee the envy of many another research centre and an ideal place for such an institute." At present assessment facilities for the 600 patients and healthy volunteers involved in on-going related studies amount to two small rooms. "Our volunteers deserve better than this," says Professor Belch. "The refurbished, staffed and equipped five-room accommodation on level 7 at Ninewells Hospital will provide a much more acceptable environment for dealing with patients and volunteers as well as space for researchers to work together with all the collaborative spin-offs that entails." The four other key University groups involved in the new TICR initiative are: Professor Hugh Tunstall-Pedoe's cardiovascular epidemiology group - internationally renowned for their work on the World Health Organisation's MONICA projects. Professor Annie Anderson's Centre for Applied Nutrition Research - giving a unique nutritional dimension to the intitative. Professor Allan Struthers's team in cardiovascular medicine in clinical pharmacology which has major funding from the Heart Foundation Dr Colin Palmer's team whose work in molecular pharmacology and molecular genetics forms an important link with diet and drug interventions. The announcement of plans for the new TICR institute comes in the week before results are due to be announced of a major three year study* by Professor Belch's team into the effects of different fats in the diet. Some 200 volunteers took a range of oil supplements over eight months, representing different diets from typical high fat Scottish fare to diets rich in fish or olive oil. The effect on their circulation was then measured. /ends Contact Professor Jill Belch, head of the Vascular Section of the Department of Medicine, University of Dundee : 01382 660111 Ex 232446 Fax 01382 632333
Unique £3 m heart research centre planned for Dundee
email: j.j.f.belch@dundee.ac.uk
See website:
*See study launch release 5/1/97 at www.dundee.ac.uk/pressreleases/fats.htm
