MRI research that gets to the heart of the matter
Insight into heart disease to be presented at University of Leicester’s Frank May Prize Lecture 2018 on 29 October
The potential for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, more commonly known as MRI, to make a step-change in our understanding of heart disease is to be explored in a University of Leicester public lecture.
Cardiologist and researcher Professor Gerry McCann will give The Frank May Prize Lecture 2018 entitled ‘Using MRI to better understand and manage heart disease’ on Monday 29 October 2018. His lecture is now fully booked.
The lecture will focus on his most important clinical research, carried out in Aortic stenosis, management of patients with angina and heart attacks, heart failure and particularly the effect of diabetes and end-stage renal failure on the heart.
Professor McCann said: “I am honoured to follow in the footsteps of such distinguished medical researchers such as Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, Professor Catrin Pritchard and Professor Chris Brightling. MRI imaging of the heart has transformed our understanding of many common diseases and is now being used daily in clinical practice to refine diagnosis, optimise management and often prevents patients being exposed to invasive investigations and treatments that may not be of benefit.”
Gerry McCann is Professor of Cardiac Imaging at the University’s Department of Cardiovascular Sciences and an Honorary Consultant Cardiologist based at Leicester's Hospitals. Professor McCann lectured on the Sports Medicine programme in Glasgow before moving to Leicester in 2000 to complete specialist training in Cardiology. He was awarded a European Society of Cardiology clinical fellowship to train in Cardiac MRI in Amsterdam in 2004. This year reinvigorated his passion for clinical research, seeing the huge potential MRI had to better understand cardiovascular disease in vivo and to improve patient management.
He has undertaken a broad-based programme of clinical research in Leicester, collaborating with numerous colleagues locally and establishing National and International collaborations with MRI colleagues. Funding has been secured from the BHF, MRC and the NIHR, which also funded a dedicated research scanner and two personal research fellowships.
The Frank May Prize was endowed by Dr Frank May MBE. The prize is based on evidence of research excellence during the previous two years and evidence of outstanding promise for the future. It is awarded in competition in the University of Leicester’s College of Life Sciences. To encourage and reward medical research Dr May has also established a biennial lecture given by a national or international speaker to an invited audience.