The BHF Centre of Research Excellence in Edinburgh is a five year award from the British Heart Foundation to accelerate our strongest science by exploring novel ideas and major new opportunities, to foster the next generation of research leaders, and to collaborate across disciplines and institutions to deliver bold new discoveries. REA4 News Recruiting in March 2025: Edinburgh BHF Centre of Research Excellence Clinical Research FellowshipsThese 12 month fellowships are aimed at enabling outstanding predoctoral clinical fellows to obtain an externally funded clinical training PhD fellowship in a subject area related to the themes of the Edinburgh BHF Centre of Research Excellence: Heart Diseases, Stroke & Vascular Dementia, Cardiometabolism, Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging, and Data Driven Innovation. Applicants will be expected to submit a project plan for the duration of their fellowship and are advised to make contact with a potential supervisor well in advance of submission. The BHF Centre of Research Excellence (REA4) builds on three previous BHF Centre Awards. Our themes align with our world-leading areas of expertise. A focus on the heart-brain axis is a central core running throughout our Centre. REA4 Theme Schematic Theme 1: Heart DiseasesLed by Prof Andy Baker, this theme embodies the core strengths of the successful delivery of the full translational spectrum of cardiovascular research within Edinburgh. We now propose to explore how the vasculature interacts with the whole body and nervous system, and its role in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular diseases including atherosclerosis and aneurysm disease. The theme also highlights the opportunities to study bidirectional neurovascular interactions, such as how the brain affects the heart and how the heart affects the brain. Theme 2: Stroke and Vascular Dementia Led by Prof Rustam Salman, this theme spans the full research spectrum from improving the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of cerebral small vessel disease all the way through to using novel data-mining methods to identify trial patients and new interventions. This theme will provide major added value through our strong links with the UK Dementia Research Institute Centre, the Row Fogo Centre and the future joint BHF and UK DRI Centre for Vascular Dementia Research. Theme 3: CardiometabolismLed by Prof Rebecca Reynolds, this theme plays to our longstanding strengths in cardiometabolism and aims to dissect the metabolic drivers of cardiovascular disease across the life course as this is critical for future preventative strategies given that most common cardiovascular and neurovascular diseases are only diagnosed after decades of subclinical disease progression. Cardiometabolism is linked with the UKRI Mental Health Platform Hub in Metabolic Psychiatry, reinforcing the cross-disciplinary connections in this theme. Theme 4: Advanced Cardiovascular ImagingLed by Prof Joanna Wardlaw, Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging will use our unrivalled imaging facilities to focus on key areas of the heart-brain axis, early life research to understand congenital and paediatric cardiovascular disease, and deep phenotyping of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. For example, applying thrombus imaging techniques developed in the heart to patients with cerebrovascular disease will bring greater clarity to the role and origins of thrombosis in cryptogenic stroke. Theme 5: Data Driven InnovationLed by Prof Nick Mills, this theme will harness routinely collected health data methods to improve care for people presenting with suspected acute cardiovascular conditions. This will be achieved through discovery science to train and to test models that provide diagnostic probabilities and risk estimates for patients presenting with suspected acute coronary or neurovascular syndromes. These models will then be validated and allow the co-design of data-driven care pathways. Ultimate clinical implementation will lead to embedded decision-support tools into the electronic patient record and the evaluation of its impact on resource use and patient outcomes. BHF REA4 Pump Priming Awards Information on applying for small grants from the BHF Centre of Research Excellence REA3 Newsletters Bimonthly editions of the REA3 Newsletter BHF REA3 Pump Priming Awards The third and final round was held in April 2020. The focus was on Early Career Researcher (ECR) proposals and requests for funds to support all stages of translational research. This article was published on 2024-03-19