Vascular Ageing and Clinical Outcome
‘a man is as old as his arteries’
Thomas Sydenham, 17th-century English physician
Vascular ageing describes the worsening structure and function of your blood vessels over the life-course or in the presence of genetic, environmental, and lifestyle risk factors, which ultimately leads to heart and circulatory disease.
The ‘Vascular Ageing and Clinical Outcome’ theme focuses on trying to better understand the causes and mechanisms of vascular ageing and its role in the development of clinical outcome – including hypertension, heart failure, dementia, and stroke. This includes the identification of novel approaches for capturing the early (asymptomatic) signs of vascular ageing to better understand population and individual’s risk of heart and circulatory disease, as well as developing and evaluating patient and public facing interventions to prevent, treat and manage vascular ageing related heart and circulatory disease.
Tackling Arrhythmias and Myocardial Disease
Your heart is made up of billions of cells. All of these cells exist in a highly interconnected network and their function is tightly regulated. Synchronisation of the cells across the heart muscle (known as the myocardium) gives rise to your heartbeat, the force and rhythm of which can be varied depending on demand (e.g., during exercise, stress or sleep). In disease, or as you age, heart cells become damaged or lose functional capacity. As a consequence, the cell network deteriorates leading to problems with force (contractile failure) and an increased likelihood of rhythm disturbances (arrhythmias). This progressive decline in function typically occurs over many years, but it might be accelerated across a much shorter timescale if there are underlying genetic causes or other risk factors (for example, leading to sudden cardiac death). Current treatments for heart failure and arrhythmias, or strategies to prevent sudden cardiac death, are not as good as we’d like.
A priority of the NCRN is to support a pipeline of leading research focussed on:
- Early detection (pre-symptomatic) of force and rhythm disruption
- Genetic susceptibility to arrhythmias and heart failure
- Developing new drug therapies that prevent or slow the heart’s functional decline
- New risk factors that accelerate myocardial functional decline
- Advanced experimental systems to predict (and reverse) heart cell network disruption
Data and Advanced Analytics
The Data and Advanced Analytics theme is a cross-cutting area within the National Cardiovascular Research Network. This theme helps researchers apply data science methods to the most important questions in cardiovascular research.
Purpose and Scope
To enable researchers to use large-scale health data and advanced analytical methods to address cardiovascular based research questions. Our aim is to support reproducible, transparent research that leverages population-level data to generate insights into cardiovascular disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
What is Big Data?
Big Data refers to large, complex datasets that are too big for traditional analysis methods. In healthcare, this often includes:
- Electronic health records (GP, hospital, prescribing data)
- Imaging and diagnostic data
- Genomics and biomarker data
- Real-world data from registries and devices
Why it matters:
It enables population-level insights into risk factors and outcomes, supports predictive modelling for prevention and treatment, and integrates multiple data sources for comprehensive analysis.
The Role of Big Data in Cardiovascular Research
Big Data plays a critical role in advancing cardiovascular research by enabling:
- Population-level insights into risk factors and outcomes
- Predictive modelling to inform prevention and treatment strategies
- Integration of multiple data sources for a more complete understanding of disease pathways
These capabilities allow researchers to move beyond isolated datasets and generate evidence that supports clinical decision-making and policy development.
What We Offer
Our support is available for projects that align with NCRN priorities
Advisory Support
Help to refine research questions into something feasible with population-level data
Guidance on study design, cohort definition, and linkage strategies
Advice on governance processes and application requirements for Trusted Research Environments (TREs)
Technical Expertise
Support in creating research-ready datasets (extraction, cleaning, structuring)
Cardiovascular phenotyping and curated code lists
Best practices for reproducible analysis and transparent workflows
Resources
Access to phenotypes and code lists for cardiovascular conditions
Links to external training (e.g., HDR UK courses) and tools for data science
Funding Support
While NCRN does not apply for funding on behalf of researchers, we can provide bespoke advice and input on funding which will be tailored to individual projects. Please reach out to discuss this directly with our team.
To get in touch with the team, email [email protected] and let us know that you are interested in Data and Advanced Analytics support.