Message from Centre directors:
Welcome to the Aberdeen Cardiovascular & Diabetes Centre at the University of Aberdeen.
- Reducing risk
- Improving diagnosis
- Developing new treatments
- Increasing communication to patients
- Enhancing education, to develop the next generation of researchers
Below, we have detailed why we developed this centre and what we aim to achieve. Please take some time to read through our research projects and other information. Also please contact us if you have any questions or would like to discuss any aspects within the remit of our centre (note, we can NOT provide clinical advice, this must be done through your GP).
Professor Mirela Delibegovic (diabetes)
Professor Dana Dawson (cardiovascular)
Why do we need the Aberdeen Cardiovascular & Diabetes Centre?
Despite significant improvements in treatment, cardiovascular disease remains the main cause of death in the developed world. Scotland has an extremely high incidence of cardiovascular disease which accounts for more than a quarter (27%) of all deaths. While the advent of improved surgical techniques (such as stents) and medication have improved care and outcomes in some cases, there is now a major increase in the number of patients living with cardiovascular disease.
These patients have reduced quality of life (often debilitating), require continual treatment from NHS services and most eventually die from disease-related complications. In addition, the general population are now exposed to additional cardiovascular risk factors, in particular a sedentary lifestyle and increasingly poor nutrition are leading to a significant rise in obesity and diabetes which are directly associated with cardiovascular complications.
Scotland has the highest expenditure on cardiovascular disease in the UK and accounts for around 10% of the total health care budget per annum. Cardiovascular disease will continue to be one of the major health issues facing our society for the foreseeable future.
For further information, please see:
What is our strategy to improve patient care and outcomes?
Impact on patient care is at the ‘heart’ of our strategy. We have started with patient needs and our aims and all our research is working directly towards these aims.
In addition, the Aberdeen Cardiovascular & Diabetes Centre is not organised around the roles of individual scientists and clinicians (which can result in a block of translation and collaboration) but is organised around our collaborative research projects. Many of these are jointly managed by laboratory scientists and clinicians. This organization will provide a natural framework for collaborative teams and speed up translation towards our aim of improving outcome in cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Why is the University of Aberdeen the right place to establish this important centre?
At the University of Aberdeen, we have a dedicated teams of academic scientists and clinicians which together can address our impact streams in cardiovascular disease and diabetes research in a coordinated approach. Collectively, this group overseas research currently worth a total of several million pounds and this continues to accumulate annually. In the last 5 years we have been awarded £3.1 million of research funding from the British Heart Foundation to continue our ground-breaking research.
The well-established facilities that make the University of Aberdeen capable of hosting the Aberdeen Cardiovascular & Diabetes Centre are:
- Large numbers of patients with cardiovascular disease treated in a single hospital by teams of doctors and surgical specialists
- World-class research laboratory facilities
- Internationally recognised nutritional research at the Rowett Institute.
- Population based cohorts and expertise in data science and health informatics
- Imaging facilities including PET which can image the heart and blood vessels
- Kosterlitz Centre for drug discovery to develop new drugs
- Aberdeen Sports Village facilities and population cohorts