The importance of inflammation in cardiovascular diseases is now well established. Accelerated atherosclerosis is a feature of many of the autoimmune rheumatic diseases, and a better understanding of vascular inflammation is key to developing new therapies for atherosclerosis and for vasculitis. Against this background, I intend to undertake post-doctoral research in Prof. John Danesh’s group to gain insight into the aetiology of cardiovascular diseases and vascular inflammation by applying –omic technologies at the population level. A particular feature of our approach will be the use of Mendelian randomisation to identify likely causal mediators of cardiovascular diseases which may be amenable to therapeutic intervention.
