• Question: hey, my questions must be getting pretty boring now, sorry! what you told me about heart attacks was fascinating, you got me thinking and i really want to know if there will ever be a cure? and have you ever looked into this area? iif you could answer this i would be really pleased, thank you so much

    Asked by to Anita on 26 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Anita Thomas

      Anita Thomas answered on 26 Jun 2014:

      Magicmidget, your questions are certainly not boring me! I find the whole area fascinating, and would talk/type about it all day, if I could!

      Truly, my research (and the research of everybody here at the Bristol Heart Institute) is all geared up to finding a cure for atherosclerosis (the gradual blockage of arteries). As heart attacks and stroke are caused by these blockages, well, I intend to cure them too! There is still so much that we don’t know about how the disease is caused – we pretty much know which cells are involved, now, but not why they respond they way they do. All the time we are testing out new therapies, for each of the different aspects of heart disease (eg heart attack prevention or treatment after the attack, clot-busting, clot-buildup prevention, hole-in-heart fixes, preventing CABG (ie bypass) blockages…………and many many more).

      There is a group in Sweden, led by Jan Nilsson, who are working towards developing a vaccine for atherosclerosis. It’s a great idea, but the trouble is (in my opinion) that there are so many things that can promote the immune response – and any vaccine would probably need to be able to ‘cover’ them all.

      If Jan’s work succeeds, then we may have a final cure. If not, then the other work we do will result in at least a partial (possibly also complete) cure. Eventually (of course) – and if the funding continues!!!

      I hope that I haven’t bored you with my reply!
      Best of luck,
      Anita.

Comments

  • Photo: Amy

    Amy commented on :

    Hi Magicmidget

    I’m glad you’re enjoying learning about heart attacks, Anita’s answers are all really interesting for me too. I thought you might like to know that when I was at university we were developing a drug to help after people have a heart attack. The problem with a heart attack is that after the clot has dissolved blood rushes back into the heart, but some of the tissue has died and all the inflammatory cells in the blood can actually make the dead part bigger and cause heart failure! We were investigating a drug which stops steroids being formed in the heart, which reduces inflammation and saves more of the heart once the clot is gone – helping people recover faster and healthier.

    Don’t ever think your questions about science are boring. We all love answering them, and if you keep asking questions I’m sure you’ll be a great scientist some day too 🙂