Our network is a multidisciplinary team of scientists and clinicians. 

We work together to understand and tackle cardiovascular and metabolic disease, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke and vascular dementia.

We benefit from expertise across the Norwich Medical School and Faculty of Science at the University of East Anglia and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. 

Our mission is to understand how and why cardiovascular and metabolic diseases occur, develop new therapies and diagnostics for the treatment of disease and improve clinical practice.

We achieve this through collaboration with industry and healthcare networks. Major funders of research within the network include UKRI, British Heart Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.

"This forum will enable the collaborative environment needed to help develop ideas and therapies, so we can actually translate these for the benefit of patients and their families."

Dr Amer Rana

Research Half Day - Registration open

Registration is now open for our research half day which takes place on Wednesday 8 November 2023 from 14:00 in the Julian Study Centre. This event will include talks from a variety of speakers across Norwich Research Park, followed by refreshments.

Register here

PROGRAMME

14:00 – 14:05

Professor Samuel Fountain

Welcome and Overview

Session One

14:05 – 14:25

Professor Vassilios Vassiliou

Clinical Professor of Cardiac Medicine (MED)

Seeing the aortic valve through the years

14:25 – 14:45

Dr Stephen Robinson

Group Leader – Quadram Institute (QI)

Cell adhesion receptors in angiogenesis

14:45 – 15:05

Dr James Smith

Lecturer – Cardiovascular Stem Cells (MED)

Using induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes to study heart disease

15:05 – 15:30

Coffee Break

Session Two

15:30 – 15:50

Professor Samuel Fountain

Professor of Pharmacology (BIO)

Targeting neurotransmitters and fluid flow responses in cardiovascular drug development

15:50 – 16:10

Dr Pankaj Garg

Clinical Associate Professor in Cardiovascular Medicine (MED)

4D LAB - Cardiovascular imaging in heart disease

16:10 – 16:30

Dr Amer Rana

Associate Professor in Biomedicine (BIO)

Translating developmental and stem cell biology to define new insights and treatments in  cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary

16:30 – 16:50

Professor Andrea Münsterberg

Professor of Developmental Biology (BIO)

Investigating cardiac development in chick embryos

16:50 – 17:00

Closing Remarks

17:00 – 18:00

Refreshments

2023/2024 Seminar Series

More information on this seminar series is coming soon!

Hear from some of our researchers

Professor Samuel Fountain, School of Biological Sciences

Sam’s research, supported by the British Heart Foundation, BBSRC and several industrial partners, focuses on understanding how the nervous system controls vascular and adipose tissue with an emphasis on a family of neurotransmitter receptors.

Professor Andrea Munsterberg, School of Biological Sciences

Andrea is a research scientist addressing fundamental questions of how the heart develops in early vertebrate embryos.

Dr James Smith, Lecturer, Norwich Medical School

The group James works in use stem cells to grow new human heart cells that can be used to study cardiovascular and metabolic disease.

Professor Helen Murphy, Norwich Medical School

Helen’s interest is in early-onset T2D (T2D before 39 years of age) which is associated with hypertension, hyperlipidemia and a severe cardio-metabolic phenotype.

Dr Stephen Robinson, Research Leader, Quadram Institute

The group Stephen works with hope to guide the use and design of microbiota based therapies in order to maintain life-long vascular health.

Dr Amer Rana, School of Biological Science

Amer has had more than 25 years of clinical and lab-based research experience. His goal over the past 12 years has been to translate stem cell and developmental biology into medical therapies.