ProfessorPeterCollins

Summary

Peter Collins is Professor of Clinical Cardiology, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

Professor Collins was a preclinical undergraduate at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University before moving to St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School, London to complete his clinical training, qualifying in 1979 MB, BChir from Cambridge University.  He conducted his research for an MD degree at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, receiving his MD degree from the University of Cambridge, and won the University’s Sir Walter Langdon-Brown prize for the thesis.  He was appointed Senior Lecturer and Consultant Cardiologist in 1989 at the National Heart and Lung Institute and Royal Brompton Hospital, and appointed Professor of Clinical Cardiology at Imperial College London in 2001. 

Professor Collins is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, the American College of Cardiology and the European Society of Cardiology.  He is a member of the British Cardiac Society and the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland.  He is and has been a member and board member of several renowned societies and committees such as the International Menopause Society, British Menopause Society and European Society of Cardiology.  He is currently the Chairman of the Task Force on Gender of the European Society of Cardiology.

His principle clinical interests are in cardiovascular disease and in particular cardiovascular disease in women, coronary heart disease, hypertension,  hyperlipidaemia, insulin resistance and diabetes.  He has been instrumental in setting up and running the ‘Women’s Heart Clinic’ at the Royal Brompton Hospital, one of the first of its kind in the UK. 

He has been responsible for the education and training of specialist cardiology trainees at the Royal Brompton Hospital. He runs the undergraduate cardiology medical course for final year medical students for Imperial College at the Royal Brompton campus.  He chairs the Final Year Cardiology course committee at Imperial.

Professor Collins’ research interests include coronary flow control mechanisms, both in normal and disease states including ischemic heart disease, hypertension and heart failure, and the role of the endothelium in cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology.  His research on the endothelium led to work investigating the vascular effects of a number of different hormones including, oestrogens, progestins, androgens, SERMS and phytoestrogens, to identify the mechanisms of action and effects of these hormones in the cardiovascular system.  He has extensively researched the rare but complex condition, previously known as Cardiac Syndrome X (now termed Microvascular Dysfunction), a condition of chest pain in the absence of obstructive coronary heart disease, and has established a number of new treatment modalities for this difficult-to-manage syndrome.

Recent research collaborations within and outside Imperial include: 

Cardio-Respiratory research: As a member of the cardiorespiratory interface group Professor Collins was the PI on a successful British Heart Foundation grant which funded the highly successful  Oxford Street II Study with Professors Fan Chung, Paul Cullinan and Terry Tetley.  This study resulted in a paper published in the Lancet with several other important publications on air pollution and cardio-respiratory effects of diesel particles.

Bariatric surgery and cardiovascular risk: Collaboration with Mr Sanjay Purkayasth and colleagues at the Division of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College and the Imperial Obesity Study Group. The group have recently published a number of original research papers on the associations between bariatric surgery and cardiovascular risk in the European Heart Journal, European Journal of Preventive Cardiology,  European Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology, Journal of Diabetes, and Langenbeck's Archives of Surgery.  Professor Collins has formed a working group with Sanjay Purkayasth and his department

International RADIAL Artery Study group:  Professor Collins is a member of the International RADIAL Artery Study group having been one of the PI’s in our RSVP randomised clinical trial conducted at the Royal Brompton Campus.  The RSVP trial was originally published in Circulation.  Recently, the RADIAL group published a 10 year meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials using the radial artery as a bypass graft in CABG surgery in the very high impact factor medical journal JAMA.

Professor Collins has supervised numerous research students, many of whom are now consultant cardiologists, and has published extensively in many international peer-reviewed journals. He is the co-Editor of ‘Women and Heart Disease’ and has been responsible for the publication of a cardiovascular risk factor guide for menopause physicians in an attempt to improve the awareness, and aid with the management, of cardiovascular risk factors in menopausal women.

Professor Collins has received substantial research funding from the Victor Dahdaleh Foundation (https://victordahdalehfoundation.com) to support the continuation of his research.

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