The Team
Prof. Dr. Christian Heiss, FESC
Christian earned his Medical Degree at Düsseldorf University in Germany. He is a Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Surrey where he also heads the Clinical Medicine Section in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine. He practices internal and interventional cardiovascular medicine at Surrey and Surrey and Sussex NHS Healthcare Trust at East Surrey Hospital in Redhill. His private practise is at Nuffield Health Guildford Hospital.
He is an internationally recognized expert in diagnostic, interventional, and experimental cardiovascular medicine. His research interests include basic mechanisms of vascular homeostasis and human interventions for improvement of cardiovascular health and healthy aging. His clinical work focuses on the prevention and endovascular treatment of complex multi-level atherosclerosis in particular in patients with peripheral artery disease.
Professor Heiss has previously headed the Vascular Medicine program at the Department of Cardiology, Pulmonology, and Vascular Medicine of the University of Düsseldorf, in Germany. He received training in basic cardiovascular research, clinical cardiology, and vascular medicine. After completing Medical School and dissertation at Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, he did a post-doctoral research fellowship in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Düsseldorf and an American Heart Association research fellowship in Molecular Cardiology at the University of California San Francisco. He was also an affiliated faculty member at the Nutrition Department of the University of California Davis. He then returned to the University of Düsseldorf as a clinical consultant and headed a translational research group. He received the prestigious Eden’s Award for Excellence in Cardiovascular Research of the University of Düsseldorf for his work on endothelial dysfunction and adaptation in the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis.
He has published more than one hundred fifty manuscripts in international peer reviewed journals (see Pubmed link) and serves on the board of the European Society of Vascular Medicine, Royal Society of Medicine Vascular, Metabolic and Lipid Section Council, the UEMS Division of Vascular Medicine, the Nucleus of the European Society of Cardiology WG on Aorta&PVD, and the advisory board of the German Vascular Medicine Society. He has obtained research funding from the German Research Council, the European Union, UKRI as well as industry and charity and has coordinated multi-center collaborative projects such the FLAVIOLA project funded by the European Union.
Louise Iliasi
Louise coordinates clinic appointments in the private practise at Guildford Hospital and East Surrey Hospital in Redhill. She has years of experience as a vascular nurse.
Areas of Specialty
Vascular Medicine
Vascular medicine, also called Angiology, is a growing medical speciality like cardiology that is already firmly established in more than 11 European counties (see countries in green). While Cardiology relates primarily to the heart, Angiology is the internal medical specialty dedicated to prevention, diagnosis and treatment of blood vessel diseases: arterial, venous and lymphatic. We are part of the Vascular, Lipid and Metabolic Medicine Council of the Royal Society of Medicine which is the UK national society working on development of this specialty in the UK. In addition we are active on the board of the European Society of Vascular Medicine and UEMS Division of Vascular Medicine.
Currently, we are one of the few specialized angiology practice in the UK providing integrated vascular care including endovascular procedures and personalised medical treatment. See our first safety and efficacy data published in VASA, the European Journal of Vascular Medicine.
Peripheral artery disease
Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is caused by blocking of blood vessels to the legs. It can lead to pain in the legs, non-healing foot wounds, amputations and early death. While worldwide more than 237 million people are affected, it is not detected in 9 out of 10 people and therefore not treated early enough. We are passionate about treating people with PAD and have contributed to international treatment guidelines by the European Society for Vascular Medicine.
Multidisciplinary treatment
As vascular diseases falls between medical specialties, we are part of a network of medical specialists. Our recent analysis shows that organisation of care and multi-disciplinary work can prevent almost 50% of amputations. (see paper in Acta Diabetologica)
Cardiovascular Research
Our basic, translational and epidemiology science projects aim at learning how vascular disease develops and find novel and innovative ways of creating new treatments. In particular endothelial cells that line our blood vessels are in the center of our attention. See our publications on Pubmed.