Most heart attacks should never happen at all
In Northern Ireland, where heart and circulatory disease quietly claims the lives of five women each day — twice the toll of breast cancer — three scientists are working to bring this overlooked epidemic into the light. Through clinical trials, stem cell research, and wearable technology, they are pursuing prevention, management, and regeneration across the full arc of cardiovascular disease. Their work is as much a challenge to public indifference as it is to the biology of a failing heart.
- Heart disease kills twice as many Northern Irish women as breast cancer each year, yet commands a fraction of the funding and public attention that other conditions receive.
- A cardiologist's statin study revealed that nearly all perceived side effects were psychological — a finding that could return thousands of patients to a medication that transforms heart disease into a manageable condition.
- A Queen's University professor identified a gene driving blood vessel destruction in diabetics, then demonstrated in mice that removing it could restore vascular function and potentially halt cardiovascular decline.
- A younger researcher has found that manipulating a single protein in umbilical cord stem cells can trigger new blood vessel growth — opening a path to repairing damage from heart attacks and strokes from within the body.
- Pandemic lockdowns halted lab work for months and strained the charity funding all three scientists, but each has returned to research with renewed urgency, knowing the disease they study does not pause.
In Northern Ireland, coronary heart disease kills roughly 1,900 women every year — five each day — yet it receives far less public attention than other conditions that claim fewer lives. Three female scientists, each approaching the problem from a different direction, are working to close that gap.
Dr Susan Connolly, a consultant cardiologist in Enniskillen, has built her career around a single conviction: most heart attacks are preventable. Her program Our Hearts, Our Minds brought together a multidisciplinary team to help heart attack survivors rebuild their health, and when the pandemic forced it online, it became something more sophisticated — patients now use Fitbits and a smartphone app to monitor their own heart rhythms in real time, staying connected to their care team without entering a hospital. Her separate research into statins produced a striking finding: patients who believed they couldn't tolerate the medication experienced nearly identical side effects when taking a placebo, suggesting the intolerance was largely psychological. Half of those participants returned to statins after the trial, reinforcing her view that the drugs are among the most powerful tools available against heart disease.
Professor Andriana Margariti leads vascular and regenerative medicine at Queen's University Belfast, where her team identified a gene called QKI-7 that drives blood vessel dysfunction in diabetic patients. Because diabetes and heart disease are so closely linked — around 19,000 of Northern Ireland's 74,000 coronary heart disease patients also have diabetes — the discovery carries significant weight. When her team removed the associated protein in diabetic mice, blood vessel function was restored. The research was interrupted by five months of pandemic lockdown, but the team has since returned to pursue its implications.
Dr Karla O'Neill, working with stem cells from donated umbilical cord blood, has found that raising levels of a protein called NOX4 stimulates the formation of new blood vessels. These malleable cells could one day be introduced into patients to repair vascular damage caused by heart attacks, diabetes, or stroke. The work is incremental, but the ambition is to rebuild the circulatory system from within.
All three researchers are sustained in part by British Heart Foundation funding — £1.8 million at Queen's University alone — and all three are conscious that the disease they study remains underestimated. Their science is, in its own way, an argument: that what kills quietly and without fanfare deserves the same urgency as what kills loudly.
In Northern Ireland, heart disease kills twice as many women as breast cancer each year—roughly 1,900 deaths, or five women a day. Yet the condition receives a fraction of the public attention that other diseases command. Three female scientists working across the region are trying to change that calculus, each pursuing a different angle on the same urgent problem: how to prevent, manage, and ultimately reverse the damage that coronary heart disease inflicts.
Dr Susan Connolly, 49, is a consultant cardiologist based in Enniskillen who has spent her career chasing a simple conviction: most heart attacks should never happen. About 80 percent of them, she argues, are preventable through lifestyle change. When she moved to Northern Ireland in 2018, she secured funding to launch Our Hearts, Our Minds, a multidisciplinary program that brought together nurses, dieticians, physiotherapists, and psychologists to help people who had already suffered a heart attack rebuild their lives. The results were striking enough that when the pandemic forced the program online, it evolved into something unexpected. Patients now receive Fitbits to track their activity in real time, feeding data to a dashboard that allows the cardiology team to monitor them and send messages directly. When palpitations strike—a common and frightening occurrence—patients can open an app on their device, measure their heart rhythm over 60 seconds, and learn whether it's normal or dangerous, all without entering a hospital. Connolly's other major contribution has been research into statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs that have become controversial in media coverage and online. Her team studied people who believed they couldn't tolerate statins, cycling them through different monthly regimens that included both the drug and placebos. The finding was striking: patients experienced nearly identical side effects whether they were taking the actual medication or a dummy pill. About half the study participants returned to statins after the trial ended, suggesting that much of the perceived intolerance was psychological rather than physiological. Statins, Connolly believes, are a wonder drug—not a cure, but a way to transform heart disease from a death sentence into a manageable chronic condition.
Professor Andriana Margariti arrived in Belfast from London to lead the Department of Vascular and Regenerative Medicine at Queen's University. Her focus is narrower but potentially more transformative: using stem cells to discover treatments for diseases that currently have none. Her breakthrough came through a three-year study funded by the British Heart Foundation, which identified a gene called QKI-7 that appears to drive blood vessel dysfunction in diabetic patients. The discovery matters because diabetes and heart disease are tightly linked—around 74,000 people in Northern Ireland have coronary heart disease, and roughly 19,000 of them also have diabetes. Adults with diabetes are up to three times more likely to develop heart and circulatory conditions. When Margariti's team removed the QKI-7 protein in diabetic mice, blood vessel function was restored. The vessels could regenerate, potentially stopping the cascade of cardiovascular complications before they began. The research was interrupted by lockdown, when all experimental work halted for five months, but the team has returned to the lab working intensively to pursue the implications of their discovery.
Dr Karla O'Neill, 34, from Dungiven, approaches the problem from yet another angle. Working with cells harvested from donated umbilical cord blood, she has discovered that increasing levels of a protein called NOX4 can boost the formation of new blood vessels. These stem-like cells, already destined to become blood cells but still malleable, could potentially be introduced into patients to repair damage from heart attacks, diabetes, or stroke—essentially rebuilding the vascular system from within. The work is painstaking and incremental, but the potential is vast. O'Neill notes that the pandemic has made fundraising harder for the British Heart Foundation, the charity that supports all three scientists' work. The foundation currently funds £1.8 million in research at Queen's University alone.
What unites these three researchers is not just their focus on the same disease, but their conviction that the work matters because the disease is being overlooked. Heart disease kills more women in Northern Ireland than breast cancer, yet receives less funding, less media attention, less public urgency. They are working to change that equation—one gene at a time, one patient at a time, one discovery at a time.
Notable Quotes
About 80 percent of heart attacks are preventable through lifestyle changes— Dr Susan Connolly
Identifying this gene has the potential to stop the damage to the blood vessels that causes cardiovascular diseases and amputations— Professor Andriana Margariti
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does heart disease get so little attention compared to something like breast cancer, when it kills more women?
Part of it is perception. Breast cancer feels like something that can happen to anyone, suddenly. Heart disease feels preventable, like it's about lifestyle choices—so there's a layer of blame that makes people less sympathetic. But that's exactly wrong. Most people don't know that 80 percent of heart attacks are actually preventable, or that you can have diabetes and never know it's damaging your blood vessels until it's too late.
The statin research is interesting—the idea that people's side effects were partly in their heads. Does that mean statins are safe?
Not exactly. What it means is that the negative stories in the media created a kind of nocebo effect—the opposite of placebo. People read scary headlines, expect side effects, and then experience them even when they're taking a dummy pill. The drug itself is safe for most people. But the perception problem is real and it's killing people who stop taking the drug because they're afraid of it.
So the innovation is partly about changing how we talk about these drugs?
Yes, but also about changing how we deliver care. The Fitbit program is a perfect example. Instead of patients being terrified every time they feel a flutter and rushing to the hospital, they can check themselves in 60 seconds. It's less anxiety, less burden on the system, better outcomes.
The stem cell work sounds like it's still very early—mice, not humans yet.
It is early. But the discovery of that QKI-7 gene is the kind of thing that takes years to understand and then suddenly opens a door. Once you know what's broken, you can start thinking about how to fix it. The mice work proves the concept. Now it's about scaling it, testing it, making it safe for people.
What's the biggest obstacle right now?
Funding, honestly. And time. The pandemic cost them months of lab work. But also just the sheer complexity of the human body. You can fix blood vessels in a mouse and it works beautifully. In a person, there are a thousand other variables. That's why this work takes so long and costs so much.