Publish date: 21 January 2025
Professor Gavin Galasko, Director of Research, Development and Innovation at the Trust, has been made Honorary Professor of Cardiology at Lancaster University.
Prof Galasko, also a Trust Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, is currently undertaking a British Heart Foundation funded project with the University looking at dysfunctional HDL cholesterol – a contributor to cardiovascular disease.
His appointment at Lancaster University is an additional role to his ongoing clinical work at the Trust.
Professor Galasko has been heavily involved in clinical research at the Trust over the past 15 years and he has been Director of Research since 2017.
In that time, he has helped the Trust significantly develop its research capacity and capabilities, with the Trust being chosen as one of only five national NIHR Patient Recruitment Centres in 2020 and one of only 20 national NIHR Clinical Commercial Research Delivery Centres in December 2024.
He has personally recruited more than 1,000 patients who have taken part in clinical trials as local Principal Investigator and he has more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in medical journals to his name.
Prof Galasko has worked closely with Lancaster University over the past 10 years, helping write a number of research grant proposals and applications with the Engineering and Management Schools and the Faculty of Health and Medicine.
He is currently working with Professor Middleton, Professor of Chemistry at Lancaster University, as co-Principal Investigator on a British Heart Foundation funded research study evaluating dysfunctional HDL cholesterol as a new marker for cardiovascular disease status and risk.
He said: “We know that HDL (high-density lipoprotein) usually protects people from developing coronary heart disease and is otherwise known as “good cholesterol”. However, it is now known that in some patients their HDL chemistry changes which may lead to development and progression of coronary heart disease.
“In this study, we will be comparing the HDL chemistry of patients with various severities of coronary heart disease, to try to understand how and why changes in HDL chemistry can lead to HDL dysfunction and in turn lead to coronary heart disease, aiming to detect and potentially develop tests for dysfunctional HDL, a potential new marker for cardiovascular risk.
“In the future we may be able to look at potential treatments to improve HDL function and thus cardiac outcomes.”