Could a vaccine protect us against heart attacks?
Professor Ziad Mallat (Credit: Nick Saffell)
Professor Ziad Mallat and his team have been shortlisted for a £30 million grant from the British Heart Foundation. If successful, atherosclerosis – hardening of the arteries – could become a thing of the past.
Ziad Mallat has a bold ambition: he wants to help create a world free from heart attacks and stroke - and to achieve this, he says, one day we could find ourselves being offered a vaccine to protect us in later life.
With the arrival of COVID-19, vaccines are very much at the forefront of people’s minds. But Mallat is not an opportunist, looking to tap into the zeitgeist – in fact, he first told me about his idea when we met in January 2020, before the newly-emerging SARS-CoV-2 had even been given its name.