Category: National Heart and Lung Institute

How COPD patients can sing their way to better health this Christmas

COPD singing

Carol Singers (CC BY 2.0)

In this post, Dr Nicholas Hopkinson looks at the benefits of singing for people with respiratory conditions such as COPD.


Singing carols is a big part of Christmas cheer, but not many people realise that singing can also be helpful for people with lung disease. COPD is an extremely common condition – there are 1.3 million people with this diagnosis in the UK. Existing treatments help to some extent, but do not reverse the underlying pathology, meaning that even with optimal care many patients remain breathless with activity limitation and poor quality of life. This symptom burden represents a major area of unmet need. Singing for Lung Health (SLH) groups are a potential way for patients to gain skills to improve control of their breathing and posture, reducing symptom burden and enhancing wellbeing. (more…)

“Don’t you just get the summer off?”

“Don’t you just get the summer off?” – James MossJames Moss, a Teaching Fellow, provides an insight into his role, from exam marking to supporting research projects. 


Not quite a million-dollar question, but one I am often asked by students I bump into over the summer months, who seem perplexed to see me on College premises. “But there’s no teaching” they’ll say, which is a fair and accurate statement. My job title is Teaching Fellow, which means I’m employed to design and deliver teaching sessions for our students. Fortunately for me, variety is the spice of life, and there are lots of different ways I spend my time. (more…)

Lung volume reduction – new hopes and missed opportunities in COPD


COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, has traditionally been thought of as an irreversible and somewhat hopeless condition. Many patients with COPD may be missing out on the possibility for a dramatic improvement in their condition. They deserve better.


COPD, is a common and important condition. There are 1.3 million people with a diagnosis of COPD in the UK and it’s now the third leading cause of death worldwide. The main symptoms are breathlessness, cough and sputum production.

The term COPD encompasses a range of pathological processes, usually caused by smoking or inhaling other noxious materials. It includes chronic bronchitis – inflammation and damage to airways as well as emphysema – destruction of the lung tissue itself and damage to the blood vessels in the lung. In emphysema the walls of the alveoli (air sacs) break down. The lung tissue loses its elasticity and becomes baggy, and air gets trapped in the lungs making breathing uncomfortable. In some people the condition is caused by alpha one antitrypsin (A1AT) deficiency; the inherited lack of a defensive enzyme, which makes their lungs much more vulnerable. (more…)

Understanding our achy breaky hearts

Takotsubo syndrome

PhD student Liam Couch unravels the science behind breaking heart syndrome and explains how his research is helping to understand the unknowns of this condition. 


Broken heart syndrome, officially known as takotsubo syndrome, is an acute type of heart failure, where the bottom of the heart stops beating in situations of extreme stress. A condition predominantly affecting post-menopausal women, it has been dubbed broken heart syndrome owing to the frequent occurrence during bereavement after the loss of a loved one. However, this is just one example of the various circumstances in which takotsubo syndrome can occur. Indeed, any stressful event can lead to a surge in adrenaline which can result in takotsubo syndrome. This could be physical or emotional, and includes trauma such as car accidents, drug abuse, and even happy events such as weddings! (more…)

Vaccines are vital


Originally published on the MRC Insight blog and reproduced under CC BY 4.0, here Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial and President of the British Society for Immunology, says we cannot afford to be complacent about vaccines.


As a clinician working in research, I want to improve peoples’ health. The NHS was set up to focus on treating people with disease. But how much better would it be if we could prevent people from getting sick in the first place?

This is where vaccines come in. As vaccinologists, we use our scientific knowledge to design new or improved vaccines to stimulate the immune system. This creates natural protection against infections and prevents disease. (more…)

World Heart Day: Building new hearts at the BHF Regenerative Medicine Centre

Regenerative Medicine

On World Heart Day, Sian Harding Head of the BHF Centre of Regenerative Medicine looks at how the Centre’s cutting-edge science is working towards building new heart muscle. 


We are excited by the news that our BHF Regenerative Medicine Centre has been renewed for another four-year term from 1 October 2017! At Imperial we have been concentrating on the big challenge of producing new muscle for the damaged heart, along with our partners in the Universities of Nottingham, Glasgow, Hamburg and Westminster.

The heart has a very limited capacity to repair itself after a heart attack, or during the more insidious damage from high blood pressure, diabetes or chemotherapy. We have been looking at various kinds of stem cells to explore their power to become new cardiac muscle cells – one of the big successes of the current Centre. Pluripotent stem cells – those which have the capability of turning into any cell type in the body – can now be turned very efficiently into beating heart muscle in the laboratory dish, and made into strips of engineered heart tissue. Our partner, Professor Chris Denning, at the University of Nottingham has automated the process of making the cells and Professor Thomas Eschenhagen in Hamburg has contributed his technology for converting this into muscle. (more…)

From bakery to benchside: a medical student’s journey in research

Here, Vinay Mandagere a medical student, reflects on his journey through medical school, from initial rejection to researching TB.


It was extremely challenging for me to stare back at the four rejections that faced me. Four rejections from four separate medical schools. Four independent reviewers telling me I was not to be a doctor. I had to endure seemingly unending encouragements and sympathies from friends and family. Their attempts were well-meaning, but often repetitive. My particular favourite was “I believe Edward Jenner didn’t get into medical school the first time round”. This, of course, was a complete fabrication. I think I always had this naïve cockiness about me, an artless assumption that I had the necessary experiences to stroll into medical school. Perhaps rejection had a subduing effect on my ego, though, I probably would presume most of those who know me would thoroughly disagree.

Nevertheless, it occurred to me that I had a year to convince the doctors of now that I could be a doctor of the future. But then I thought again. I had an entire year to do what I wanted. I found myself avoiding medical work of any sort, and take up a job in a bakery. I normally stop here when I want to impress people, to give the impression that I mastered the art of conjuring delicious, enticing pastries. In fact, it is due to my semi-duplicitous nature that many people still think of me as a great baker. But I’m not. In reality, my primary role was to serve customers, clean and wash up (as well as outline the difference between spelt bread and gluten-free bread: a distinction I still don’t understand to this day). It was an enjoyable job, and it provided me with some money to fuel some travelling later on. Moreover, I had the blessing of taking home two full bags of artisan breads untouched by the day’s customers — a perk which became more and more hedonistic as the year went on. (more…)

TB or not TB? Why tuberculosis remains one of the top 10 causes of death today

Tuberculosis

PhD student Dr Ishita Marwah writes about her personal take on tuberculosis – a disease that continues to be a global issue.


I was always a sickly child – when I was eleven years old, doctors injected my forearm with tuberculin in order to check whether my immune system raised a response to the bits and bobs of dead tuberculosis (TB) bacteria in it. If it did, it meant my immune system had already been prodded into battling TB, that is, it had previously encountered or was currently encountering an infection with TB bacteria. The injection site swelled like a furious bee sting, the doctors decided TB was the root cause of all my troubles, and I was intensely medicated for the next six months. My symptoms improved, and I have since evolved (visibly even!) towards the hale and hearty end of the healthiness spectrum. (more…)

Weighing up dodgy diets

Weighing up dodgy diets

From gluten-free to detox diets, Dr Anusha Seneviratne dissects the scientific evidence (or lack of) behind eccentric diets. 


Magazines and newspapers are full of so-called ‘tips’ or ‘advice’ for the image conscious, detailing extreme diets followed by the rich and famous to achieve dramatic weight loss, or new diets apparently supported by the latest scientific research. One example is the gluten-free diet, made fashionable particularly in the sporting world by former world number one tennis player Novak Djokovic (1). Having had a reputation for being physically weaker than his rivals, Djokovic was eventually diagnosed with coeliac disease and the resulting gluten intolerance. Eliminating gluten from his diet transformed his career. (more…)