Professor Qingbo Xu

BHF John Parker Chair of Cardiovascular Sciences

King’s College London School of Medicine
BHF Centre of Research Excellence

Professor Xu and his team study the mechanisms that cause development of heart and circulatory diseases in order to understand how they can be treated. They particularly focus on the build up of fatty materials in the walls of the arteries (atherosclerosis).

Stem cells and blood vessel diseases

Recent evidence indicates that stem cells (cells that can transform into many different types of specialised cells) play a crucial role in the development of heart disease and atherosclerosis. Professor Xu is looking at the potential use of these cells in developing treatments. Very recently the team found that artery walls contain abundant stem cells which we could perhaps harness for disease prevention or therapy.

Professor Xu's work with stem cells is a vital part of our Mending Broken Hearts campaign. We're looking to spend £50m to help people with heart failure following a heart attack.

Proteins and genes

In order to harness this potential for future therapies, we need to understand the signals that spark the transformation of stem cells into functional cells carrying out specific jobs in our blood vessels.

These signals come in the form of proteins and Professor Xu’s group is working to reveal these important molecular signals by profiling all the proteins present in stem cells and specialised blood vessel cells.

Understanding bypass failure

Professor Xu's team has created a vital model to replicate the build up of fatty plaques (atheroma) in heart bypass vein grafts. This is proven to be powerful for studying the development and treatment of bypass failure, which occurs in about half of vein grafts within a decade of the procedure.

Many people from Europe and the USA have visited Professor Xu’s laboratory to learn the techniques for establishing the model, which is now used widely. In addition, the team also use several other models for their studies, including heart transplantation.

Further Information