The cardiac muscle cell, or myocyte, is the building block of the heart. Professor Harding developed the methodology for isolating individual beating myocytes from human heart and for measuring their function. Deterioration of myocyte function during the development of heart failure is a process that is distinct from the original injury to the heart and may be the result of the body’s attempt to produce maximum work from a damaged muscle. Characterisation of the functional alterations to the myocyte, and the molecular processes underlying them, has led to ideas for drug treatments and for a clinical trial of gene therapy for the failing heart. Methods for introducing new myocytes into the heart are being developed. Embryonic stem cells are grown under conditions where they become beating myocytes and compared with adult cells to see whether they are suitable for implantation. Cell therapy has the potential both to replace damaged tissue and to allow the remaining dysfunctional myocytes to recover.

Professor Sian Harding, Professor of Cardiac Pharmacology, National Heart and Lung Institute, obtained her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from King’s College, London in 1981. She joined the Cardiothoracic Institute as a Post-doctoral Fellow and has remained during its transformation to the National Heart and Lung Institute and its incorporation as a Division of the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine. She became Professor of Cardiac Pharmacology in 2002. Her work has been funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council, the Biochemical and Biophysical Research Council, the NC3Rs, Pfizer, GSK and SmithKline Beecham. She has supervised 25 Ph.D. students and 30 other staff. Professor Harding is President-elect of the European Section of the International Society for Heart Research and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

This lecture is chaired by Professor Anthony Newman Taylor, Head of Division, National Heart and Lung Institute.

Vote of thanks: Professor Phillip Poole-Wilson, BHF Simon Marks Chair of Cardiology, National Heart and Lung Institute