Heart troubles

Blood clotting is an essential process that ensures we don’t lose too much blood from an injury or cut. But uncontrolled clotting, leads to serious cardiovascular diseases including heart disease, stroke and deep vein thrombosis. So how do clots form at the right time and the right place and how can we control this to prevent disease? Part of the answers comes from an isolated island in Finland and weirdly relies on the formation of strings.

Heart disease affects both men and women, but it is now known that the way this impacts the heart is different between the two sexes. At the moment, research surrounding heart disease has mainly been focussed on men. This means that the current treatments available will not work as well when given to women. Therefore, Professor Ahluwalia’s lab aims to change this by researching the differences that exist in heart disease between men and women, and how to develop treatments that will work well for both sexes.