CRIS announces appointment of Executive Director and Co Director for CADENCE

The Consortium for Clinical Research and Innovation, Singapore (CRIS) is pleased to announce the appointment of Prof Derek Hausenloy as Executive Director and A/Prof Mark Chan as Co-Director of its new National Clinical Translational Programme (NCTP) for cardiovascular diseases.

The CArdiovascular DiseasE National Collaborative Enterprise (CADENCE), is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Health's National Medical Research Council under its CADENCE sub-initiative (NMRC/CADENCE/2023). CADENCE will be established as a business unit under CRIS.

Appointment of Professor Derek Hausenloy as Executive Director, CADENCE from 18 January 2023

Derek Hausenloy is Professor in the Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disorders Signature Programme, Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School, and Research Director and Senior Consultant Cardiologist at the National Heart Research Institute Singapore, National Heart Centre Singapore.

He is also Professor in the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, University College London, UK. He is a National Medical Research Council STaR Investigator Award who conducts basic, translational and clinical research in the areas of ischaemic heart disease, heart failure, cardioprotection, and cardiac MRI.

His main research focus is on discovering novel therapies for protecting the heart against acute ischaemia/reperfusion injury and heart failure. His research ranges from cellular and animal disease models of cardiovascular disease to proof-of-concept clinical studies in acute myocardial infarction, heart failure and cardiac bypass surgery patients, and finally to large multi-centre randomised clinical trials focused on clinical outcomes. He also uses human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes to model cardiomyopathies to elucidate underlying mechanisms and identify novel therapeutic targets and has interests in cardiac MRI, nanotechnology for drug delivery, and discovering new treatment targets for peripheral arterial disease. He has been a PI on over 40 research grants, has authored over 350 papers (H-index 101), and was named Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics (awarded to the top 1% of researchers worldwide) in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

As Executive Director of CADENCE, Prof Hausenloy aims to establish cardiovascular research as a peak of research excellence in cardiovascular research and propel Singapore to be a global leader in cardiovascular research. To achieve this goal, CADENCE will integrate existing research capabilities across academic and public health institutions, and bring together the strongest basic, clinical, and translational talent and expertise across Singapore, into a focused and impactful national-level cardiovascular programme with world-class peaks of excellence. CADENCE will include impactful clinical practice-changing Use Cases to work through and address multi-institutional pain-points constraining ecosystem level research in Singapore.

Appointment of Associate Professor Mark Chan as Co-Director, CADENCE from 1 February 2023

Dr Mark Chan, MBBS, PhD, is an Associate Professor with tenure at the Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore and Senior Consultant and practising interventional cardiologist at National University Heart Centre, Singapore.

In 2019, he received the National Medical Research Council Clinician Scientist Senior Investigator Award. He is deputy director of the Cardiovascular Disease Translational Research Programme, NUS, and supervises translational research and clinical trials of acute myocardial infarction at the Cardiovascular Research Institute, NUS. He leads both basic science and clinical research team at the Cardiovascular Research Institute and National University Heart Centre, Singapore. Among other federally-funded and industry-supported projects, A/Prof Chan is the overall PI of the national Acute Myocardial Infarction: allied Health-Oriented, Patient-centred and technology-Enabled (AMI-HOPE) programme with National University Health System, Singhealth and National Healthcare Group colleagues. He is also the overall PI of the three-country randomised controlled trial of an anti-inflammatory small-molecule inhibitor to treat atherosclerosis in patients with AMI (PASSIvation of Vulnerable plaques with AZD5718 in acuTE coronary syndrome – the PASSIVATE trial). A/Prof Chan has published more than 260 peer-reviewed papers and has published in JAMA, Circulation, JAMA Cardiology, European Heart Journal, Nature Communications, JACC Cardiovascular Interventions, Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis and JACC Cardiovascular Interventions.

As Co-Director of CADENCE, A/Prof Chan will assist Prof Hausenloy in bringing together the best in basic science and clinical research across the cardiovascular community in Singapore. Widely known as a both a keen scientist and hands-on clinician who continues to cover the outpatient clinics, inpatient wards and interventional call roster, A/Prof Chan will actively engage the clinical cardiovascular community to work hand-in-hand with the cardiovascular research community.

We warmly welcome Prof Hausenloy and A/Prof Chan and look forward to their leadership at CADENCE.