Professor Allan Struthers

Allan Struthers is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine. He is currently funded as PI by the BHF, the MRC, the CSO, Diabetes (UK) and the Chest, Heart & Stroke Association. In total he has had 29 different BHF grants including two 5 year BHF awards (one as PI).

He contributes strongly not only to the local NHS but also to the wider NHS. He runs the Heart Failure Service for Ninewells Hospital. He was Chairman of the recent SIGN Guidelines (2007) for Heart Failure and is now Chairman of the group developing the Heart Failure Standards which will be applied in 2009 across all Scottish hospitals by NHS-QIS (NHS Quality Improvement Scotland). He is also Chairman of the National Scientific Advisory Committee of Tenovus and is Regional Advisor for the Scottish Advisory Committee for Distinction Awards. He has served on seven other research grant committees including the BHF Chairs & Programme Grant Committees and has been a member of three BHF site visit teams. He is also a member of the Cardiovascular Expert Advisory Committee of the UK Medicines Commission. He was Head of the University Division of Medicine & Therapeutics from 2002-2008. He has given 190 invited lectures (half abroad), published 380 papers and supervised 40 MD/PhDs. His publications include 4 Lancet and 7 Circulation papers. His current h factor is high at 44.

His research is mostly clinical research in the cardiovascular area. One longstanding focus of interest has been B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP). He wrote one of the first two original papers published together in the Lancet which described the use of BNP to identify heart failure. More recently, his group has shown that BNP can identify silent myocardial ischaemia which opens up the possibility of using BNP screening to identify those individuals whose first ever manifestation of their heart disease is sudden unexpected death. This tantalising possibility is being investigated with a 5 year BHF special grant (the 5P study).

He also pioneered the use of spironolactone in heart failure. He was the first to show its cardiac benefits in 1995 which led to the 1999 RALES study where it reduced cardiac death, for which it is now in widespread use.

His other main focus is in allopurinol where he has shown that allopurinol improves endothelial function by profoundly reducing vascular oxidative stress.

Another related focus is in using cardiac MRI to examine novel ways to regress left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). His group has shown that reducing BP does this even when baseline BP is normal and is investigating other approaches to achieve this such as allopurinol and vitamin D.

He is also working with Professor McMurdo to find novel ways to reduce disability in the elderly. They have already shown that ACE inhibitors can achieve this and are exploring other novel approaches such as spironolactone.

Professor Struthers has a strong track record of supervising clinicians through their MD/PhDs. All his previous research fellows have gone on to achieve registrar/consultant/professor jobs in their chosen specialty which is usually cardiology. Examples of his previous very successful research fellows are Professor John McMurray and Professor Chim Lang.