Dr M Harith Alam

Harith Alam is a PhD student and clinical research fellow in the CMR Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, part of the Cardiovascular Sciences Section at the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI).

Harith completed his secondary education at Rougemont School (1994), South Wales, before moving to Oxford University for his undergraduate studies. At Oxford, he was awarded an MA in Natural Sciences (1997 - Molecular Basis of Disease, Cardiac Electrophysiology, Neuropharmacology, as well as an experimental dissertation on the role of Acetylcholinesterase in Parkinson's Disease in Baroness Susan Greenfields lab at the University Dept. of Pharmacology) followed by BMBCh in Medicine (2000 - including a 3 month elective as part of Professor Adrian Harris' team at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, researching the role of hypoxic induction of angiogenesis in head and neck cancer).
 
Harith trained clinically in post-graduate Medicine at Oxford and Northampton (MRCP 2004). Prior to studying at Imperial, Harith has been a Specialist Registrar in Cardiology and General Internal Medicine for 5 years within the north-west Thames quadrant of the London Deanery. His specialist interest is Cardiovascular Imaging.

His current research area is investigating the role of iron measurement using cardiovascular MRI (CMR). This has particlar application in the assessment of cardiac iron overload in several clinical conditions. As part of his doctorate project, Harith will examine the role of genetic modifiers in the cardiac iron loading seen in Thalassaemia major, the most prevalent single-gene disorder in man, in which it is a major cause of long-term morbidity and mortality. He will also be involved in the development and validation of CMR sequences used to measure iron in the human body.

Finally, Harith is funded by a British Heart Foundation Project Grant, and he is supervised by Professor Dudley Pennell, who is Director of the CMR Unit, Cardiovascular Imaging, as well as the Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit (BRU) at the Royal Brompton Hospital.