Clinical Heart Failure
Dr Theresa McDonagh, Principal Investigator
Dr McDonagh's Group is very much under construction at this stage. She joined the RBH as a consultant cardiologist with an interest in heart failure in 2004. During that year she has established a good clinical heart failure base from which to launch clinically based research projects.
The main areas of original research which will be pursued at RBH are as follows:
- A study examining the characteristics of the novel peptide apelin in patients undergoing cardiac resynchronisation therapy-as a predictor of reverse remodelling. This study is about to commence. A research fellow funded by the Luff Fellowship has been appointed (Dr B Chandrekarian).
- A collborative study with Professor Peter Collins in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy is also in the advanced stages of planning--examining the effects of PDE5 inhibitors in patients with DCM who have chest pain.
- Lastly a collboration is being explored with Professor Pepper and Professor Neidle at UCL, studying telomerase activation in heart failure.
Dr McDonagh is also functioning as the PI at the RBH site for two multicentre trials of novel pharmacological agenst in heart failure -ivrabradine and eplerenone. Laura Fallon (Health Services Research Nurse) is also collaborating with these studies.
