Professor Martin Bennett
BHF Chair of Cardiovascular Sciences
University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's
Hospital
Professor Bennett heads up the Division of
Cardiovascular Medicine, which is based in laboratories funded
largely by the BHF.
The team includes both clinical and basic science researchers,
who collaborate with many other teams in the hospital to maximise
research opportunities and transfer findings back to the
clinic.
A major focus of research is to understand how
we might improve the health of arteries in heart disease, by
stabilising the cells in the blood vessel wall. This could prevent
dangerous narrowing of blood vessels, and consequently, heart attack. The team has identified some
important molecules that control cell proliferation and cell
death.
Cell proliferation
Bennett’s team has discovered why cells in the
advanced fatty plaques of diseased arteries proliferate poorly,
preventing repair of minor vessel damage and increasing the risk of
clot formation and heart attack.
The researchers have also studied how blood
vessel cells are affected by disease therapies such as stents, which reopen blocked arteries, and
radiation therapy, for cancer. These treatments trigger too much
cell multiplication, which can narrow the vessels, and the work has
led to the design of anti-proliferative agents that are currently
being tested to prevent such side effects.
Cell death
Healthy smooth muscle cells in the wall of
blood vessels are essential for stabilising the fatty plaques that
can build up in arteries. The team have found that the death of
these cells makes a plaque more prone to rupture, which could lead
to a blood clot and therefore, heart attack.
Professor Bennett’s team study the
regulation of this process and have determined that smooth muscle
cells from advanced plaques have lost the ability to protect
themselves from cell death, and are also killed by local
inflammatory cells.
These studies have clarified the cell death
processes in heart disease, and will examine whether medicines can
prevent it.
Cell ageing
Finally, new studies have shown accelerated
ageing of cells in severe fatty plaques, making them less able to
repair and regenerate.
The team are working to clarify the
processes behind this phenomenon, aiming to design medicines to
slow the ageing process.
Further information
Read more about our achievements in
heart attack research that are now benefiting patients.
