Department of Cardiovascular Sciences
Example PhD projects
Self-funding students or students seeking PhD studentship opportunities are encouraged to view the example projects offered below by supervisors in our department. If you are interested, please contact the relevant supervisor for each project.
In the case of supervisors or co-supervisors who work in other departments, their main department is denoted in parentheses following their name.
| Project | Supervisor | Co-supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| The Effect of Surgery on Central Aortic Pressure and Haemodynamics (ESCAPE) | Professor Matt Bown | Professor Rob Sayers |
| An investigation into unstable carotid atherosclerotic plaques | Professor Rob Sayers/Professor A Ross Naylor | Professor Matt Bown |
| Engineering a novel angiogenic ligand for regenerative medicine purposes | Professor Nick Brindle | Professor Nick J M London (Leicester Medical School) |
| Protein engineering the angiopoietin receptor ectodomain | Professor Nick Brindle | Dr Dave Lodwick |
| Readdressing Receptor Ligands | Professor Nick Brindle | Dr Karl E Herbert |
| Mitochondrial Reactive Oxygen Species Signalling and Cardiovascular Disease Mechanisms | Dr Karl E Herbert | Professor Alison H Goodall |
| Modulation of vascular endothelial cell phenotype by the senescence secretome | Dr Karl E Herbert | Dr Salvador Macip (Department of Molecular and Cell Biology) |
| Evaluating cellular and genetic factors regulating the haemostatic response in patients with cardiovascular disease and healthy controls | Professor Alison H Goodall | Dr James Burton |
| Is platelet-derived microRNA a modifiable risk factor in patients with acute coronary syndrome? | Professor Alison H Goodall | Dr J Howard Pringle (Leicester Cancer Research Centre) |
| Is platelet-mediated gene expression in monocytes regulated by aspirin via the PPAR gamma pathway? | Professor Alison H Goodall | Professor John Schwabe (Department of Molecular and Cell Biology) |
| Effects of hyperglycaemia and glucose-lowering therapies on cardiac function: in-vitro modelling of ischaemia and ischaemic preconditioning in isolated ventricular myocytes | Dr Glenn Rodrigo | Dr Richard Rainbow/Professor Iain B Squire |
| Re-modelling of the b-adrenoreceptor pathway and diurnal variation in sudden cardiac death in ventricular heart failure: role of NOS signalling | Dr Glenn Rodrigo | Professor Iain B Squire |
| Remote ischaemic postconditioning of human myocardium during ischaemic disease | Dr Glenn Rodrigo | Professor Sir Nilesh J Samani |
| Does cardiac conditioning modify ventricular re-modelling following AMI? | Dr Glenn Rodrigo | Professor Sir Nilesh J Samani |
| A mesenchymal stem cell-based approach for investigating cardiovascular disease-related genetic variants | Professor Sir Nilesh J Samani | Dr Dave Lodwick/Dr Tom Webb |
| Generation of Isogenic Cell Lines, Using Genome Editing, to Investigate Genetic Variants Associated with Coronary Artery Disease | Professor Sir Nilesh J Samani | Dr Dave Lodwick/Dr Tom Webb |
| Functional analysis of novel genetic markers of coronary artery disease identified by genome-wide association studies | Professor Sir Nilesh J Samani | Dr Maciej Tomaszewski |
| Genome editing-induced pluripotent stem cells models of biological ageing | Dr Tom Webb | Professor Sir Nilesh J Samani/ Dr Veryan Codd |
| The 14q32 CAD risk locus: functional analysis of HHIPL1 | Dr Tom Webb | Dr E Stringer |
| Molecular mechanism of atrial fibrillation at the chromosome 4q25 locus | Dr P Ellinor/Dr D Milan | Professor Sir Nilesh J Samani |
| Pamp-induced inflammatory reactions in CDLR/Properdin-deficient mice | Dr Clett Erridge | Dr Cordula Stover (Department of Respiratory Sciences) |
| Autonomic modulation of ventricular arrhythmia is heart failure | Professor G André Ng | Dr K E Brack |
| Improving understanding and treatment of AF via ablation: The frequency domain, objective measurements of fractionation and entropy | Professor G André Ng | Dr Fernando Soares Schlindwein (Department of Engineering) |
| Signal processing of atrial electrograms of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) | Dr Fernando Soares Schlindwein (Department of Engineering) | Professor G André Ng |
| Non-invasive transmural 3-dimensional mapping of atrial fibrillation for catheter ablation | Dr Fernando Soares Schlindwein (Department of Engineering) | Professor G André Ng |
| The Plasma Proteome and outcome in patients with heart failure | Professor Leong Loke Ng | Professor Don J L Jones (Leicester Cancer Research Centre) |
| The impact of ethnicity and High Density Lipoprotein proteome | Professor Leong Loke Ng | Professor Don J L Jones (Leicester Cancer Research Centre) |
| Markers of Heart Failure | Professor Don J L Jones (Leicester Cancer Research Centre) | Professor Leong Loke Ng |
| Myocardial Perfusion reserve in Aortic Stenosis | Professor Gerry McCann | Dr M Horsfield |
| Identifying the vulnerable carotid plaque by dynamic ultrasound imaging and image texture analysis | Dr M Horsfield | Dr Kumar Ramnarine/Professor Thompson G Robinson |
| Navigation of emboli and wireless magnetic microvascular devices through the vasculature; a feasibility study | Dr Emma Chung | Dr M Horsfield |
| Emboli-induced brain injury following cardiac surgery | Dr Emma Chung | Dr M Horsfield |
| Effects of ischaemic stroke type and stroke hyperacute treatment on patient outcome | Professor Thompson G Robinson | Professor Ronney B Panerai |
| Engagement of health care professionals with interventions that change practice: It's about the Heart – but also requires a little soul | Professor Timothy J Coats | Matheson Dr D (University of Nottingham) |
| Vascular Assessment using Hyper-spectral and Infra-red Imaging | Professor Mark Sims | Professor Timothy J Coats |
| Characterisation of Fentanyl-Based Bivalent Opioids | Professor David G Lambert | Professor David Rowbotham (Department of Population Health Sciences) |
| Intracellular signalling pathways between nociceptin (N/OFQ) and the NOP receptor in immune cells during sepsis | Professor Jonathan P Thompson | Professor David G Lambert/Dr Cordula Stover (Department of Respiratory Sciences) |
| Penalized regression for rare variant analysis in families | Professor John Thompson (Department of Population Health Sciences) | Dr Christopher P Nelson |