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The British Heart Foundation funds basic research into coronary and circulatory diseases. They’ve recently launched a campaign to “Mend Broken Hearts“, with the aim of raising £50 million over the next ten years. This money, which is in addition to the ~£70 million the BHF spends on research each year, is going to be devoted to finding out how human hearts, damaged as a result of coronary disease, can be made to repair themselves.

Although the chances of surviving a heart attack are much higher now than they were in the ’60s and ’70s, heart tissue is irreparably damaged as a result of an attack. The BHF wants to find a way of repairing this damage, allowing survivors to lead a fully active and healthy life.

The good news is that fewer people are dying from heart attacks. The bad news is that hundreds of thousands of people are living with badly damaged hearts and heart failure.

The campaign is taking as its mascot the lowly zebrafish, which apart from being transparent (and therefore a neat experimental model—see this zebrafish factsheet and video), as an adult has the ability to regenerate damaged heart tissue.

Desmond Julian was the first to suggest the concept of the coronary care unit, in 1961, and was Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation from 1986 to 1993. In this short film, he talks about how the BHF was instrumental in getting governmental support, and why it’s important for charities to fund research. He also touches on the importance of prevention of cardiac disease:

The brightest people in the field are funded by the BHF

To aid the campaign, contemporary British artists Sir Peter Blake, Patrick Hughes, Donald Hamilton Fraser and Tom Philips have created unique works of art on the theme of Mending Broken Hearts.

These will be on tour (UK only) and you can find out more at the BHF website.