Cambridge Professor Receives £200,000 Award to Study Pulmonary Hypertension

Cambridge University professor Nicholas Morrell, a leading researcher specializing in the study of heart disease, was recently awarded a £200,000 grant ($342,920) to investigate the causes of inherited pulmonary arterial hypertension. The award was granted by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), an organization engaged in helping the 3,200 people in the UK who suffer from inherited hereditary heart conditions.

“Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a devastating condition that nobody should have to live with. We hope that through the funding this grant provides we can see if one day bone-marrow transplants might be a viable treatment option,” said Morrell, director of studies in clinical medicine at St. Catharine’s College. He went on to note that the grants will be used to fund research that will assess whether the disease is caused by abnormalities in bone-marrow, which plays a vital role in producing many types of blood cells.

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“Genetic researchers have made a number of breakthroughs in recent years, meaning we now know a lot more about what causes inherited heart conditions, but there is still a long way to go. Without research like Professor Morrell’s, we can’t develop the treatments and tests that many peoples’ lives depend on,” said Professor Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director at the BHF.

This not the first time that Dr. Morrell was awarded by the BHF. In 2007, his research was also granted a Professorship Award. He currently holds positions at Papworth Hospital, the Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre and BHF Cambridge Centre for Cardiovascular Research Excellence.

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