Barbara Casadei awarded a British Heart Foundation Professorship

Five of the 32 BHF professors are now at Oxford University, one of the BHF's Centres of Research Excellence. Professor Casadei is the first woman ever to receive such a prestigious award from the British Heart Foundation.

Professor Casadei has become one of the UK's leading experts in the complex processes behind Atrial Fibrillation (AF), when signals controlling the effective spread of the heart beat are not working properly. AF affects more than 950,000 people in the UK. It's a particularly common problem in patients who have had heart surgery. Between 35 and 50 per cent of patients develop AF shortly after heart surgery.

One of Professor Casadei's research projects aims to reduce the risk of patients developing AF after coronary artery bypass surgery using statin therapy. In another project run by Professor Casadei, reserachers are investigating a possible link between AF and inflammation and the part played by nitric oxide, an important signalling molecule, in the development of AF.

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