Heart disease is still Australia’s leading cause of death and affects families and communities around the country.
REDFEB is a campaign dedicated to raising awareness for heart health and much-needed funds for research. Donors are invited to show support by wearing something red this month. Donations can help fund exciting and world-first studies into heart disease.
Heart Research Australia (HRA) raises funds for innovative research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of heart disease. The focus is seed-funding for cardiac researchers to investigate new areas.
First-stage or “seed” funding allows researchers to turn their innovative, out-of-the-notebook ideas into reality. As this type of first-stage research does not qualify for government funding, HRA is solely reliant on the generosity of supporters.
Scholarships are available for PhD students whose work is supervised by leading HRA cardiac researchers.
All senior HRA researchers are practising clinical cardiologists, which puts them in the best position to identify research opportunities and immediately translate their discoveries “on the bench” into benefits for patients “at the bedside”. The breakthroughs they make contribute to and inspire the international body of knowledge on cardiac research.
An outstanding example of the long-term benefits created by HRA is the SALAMI project – Stents as an Alternative to Lytic therapy in Acute Myocardial Infarcation (stents used as an alternative to drug therapy) and ETAMI project (Early Triage of Acute Myocardial Infarction) procedure for heart attack victims (also known as early treatment in ambulances).
Stent treatments pioneered by HRA have helped dramatically reduce death rates from heart attacks at Royal North Shore Hospital and are now standard practice.
ETAMI allows patients to be assessed and triaged in the ambulance, using ECG diagnosis transmitted via mobile phone technology. ETAMI saves significant time (up to 100 minutes) from incident to treatment and saves heart muscle from irreversible damage by opening up the coronary artery earlier.
The stent procedure in conjunction with the ECG in the ambulance transmitting results directly to the hospital are treatments that were due to research breakthroughs funded by HRA and thanks to the generosity of donors.
https://www.heartresearch.com.au/donation/
For further information, please contact HRA at 02 9436 0056 or email enquiries@heartresearch.com.au/.
