Bio Stat CHF Tayside

A systems BIOlogy Study to Tailored Treatment in Chronic Heart Failure

Prof Allan Struthers

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Prof Allan Struthers Bio-Stat-CHF Tayside

Allan Struthers is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine.  After graduating MB with Honours from Glasgow, he trained in Glasgow and London (Royal Postgraduate Medical School/Hammersmith Hospital) before becoming Wellcome Senior Lecturer in Dundee.  He is currently funded as PI by the BHF, the MRC, the CSO, Diabetes (UK) and the Chest, Heart & Stroke Association.  In total he has had 29 different BHF grants including two 5 year BHF awards (one as PI).  He has given 190 invited lectures (half abroad), published 380 papers and supervised 40 MD/PhDs.  He focuses on clinical cardiovascular research.  One longstanding focus of interest has been B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP).  He wrote one of the first two original papers published together in the Lancet which described the use of BNP to identify heart failure.  More recently, his group has shown that BNP can identify silent myocardial ischaemia which opens up the possibility of using BNP screening to identify those individuals whose first ever manifestation of their heart disease is sudden unexpected death.  This tantalising possibility is being investigated with a 5 year BHF special grant (the 5P study).  He also pioneered the use of spironolactone in heart failure.He was the first to show its cardiac benefits in man in 1995 which led to the 1999 RALES study where it reduced cardiac death, for which it is now in widespread use.  His other main focus is in xanthine oxidase inhibitors where he has shown that high dose allopurinol prolongs the time to ST depression during exercise in angina patients, making it a completely new antianginal drug. Another related focus is in using cardiac MRI to examine novel ways to regress left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH).  He is also working with Professor McMurdo to find novel ways to improve walking ability in the elderly.