NHLI researcher wins prestigious international award for innovative cardiovascular research

Dr Darlington Okonko wins the annual Samuel A Levine Young Clinical Investigator Award - News

By Laura Gallagher
Monday 18 December 2006

An Imperial College researcher investigating the causes and treatments of anaemia in patients with chronic heart failure has won the annual Samuel A Levine Young Clinical Investigator Award. Dr Darlington Okonko received the award and USD 1,500 prize at the Annual Clinical Cardiology Council Dinner in Chicago in November, after presenting a paper on his work to a panel of distinguished researchers, scientists, nurses, clinicians and academics.

The award recognises innovative research and aims to promote careers in clinical cardiovascular investigation. Dr Okonko won the award based on the quality and originality of his paper and the way he presented his work.

Dr Okonko's paper looked at exercise in relation to anaemic patients with chronic heart failure. Anaemia, which makes people weak and tired, can make it very difficult for such patients to exercise. Dr Okonko demonstrated that exercise performance in these patients can be improved by giving them iron supplements. He and his co-researchers argued that the improvement in performance may be because iron increases the activity of proteins which generate cellular energy and not just because it increases the number of red blood cells.

On winning the award, Dr Okonko, from the National Heart and Lung Institute, said: "I was relieved when I found out we had won the award. We overcame many problems and I am grateful for the effort of Professor Poole-Wilson , Dr Stefan Anker , the other co-investigators and more importantly the patients who, despite intolerable symptoms, willingly participated without complaint."

The next stage for Dr Okonko's research is to write up his PhD thesis and to get his studies published. There are also plans to validate the results presented in his paper in a larger trial.