The Stevens Group at Imperial College London
Vital research to help treat damage to the heart
In January 2020, we continued to fund innovative medical research. Our grant of £24,000 to The Stevens Group at Imperial College London is supporting Professor Molly Stevens and her team as they develop ‘hydrogels’ which may help heal damaged hearts.
A heart attack can cause enormous damage to cardiac tissue, and patients suffer because this tissue does not naturally repair itself. Current prescription drugs and treatments are falling short. There are few options for treating the heart following an attack, so discovering new technologies like these hydrogels is vital.
So far, research has shown the hydrogels have the potential to help the body’s natural healing process.
- According to the British Heart Foundation, heart and circulatory diseases cause more than a quarter of all deaths in the UK, that’s nearly 170,000 deaths each year – one every three minutes.
- There are around 7.4 million people living with heart and circulatory disease in the UK: 3.9 million men and 3.5 million women.
- Our grant to the Stevens Group is supporting research into ‘hydrogels’ which can help heal damaged hearts.
Supporting pioneering new approaches
The Stevens Group is a multidisciplinary team at Imperial College London working at the forefront of research and development in Biosensing and Regenerative Medicine. Prof Molly Stevens leads the team and designs and develops methods and materials to address the most relevant challenges in healthcare.
The Stevens Group has produced numerous materials to help regenerate and repair tissues, such as the heart, cartilage, bone, neural tissue, the eye and kidney.
This is our second grant to fund innovation into treatments for heart disease. The first focused on a healing the heart using a cardiac patch or ‘plaster for the heart’. Read about the first grant here.
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