Down to earth approach to heart study (From Bournemouth Echo)

Down to earth approach to heart study

7:00am Monday 20th April 2009 in

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THE study of how the earth formed 4.5 billion years ago could lead to advances in the study of the human heart.

Geologist Prof Nick Petford from Bournemouth University was trying to understand the formation of the earth’s metal core.

He created a computer model of molten metal flows on a tiny scale.

That was then used to predict where blood clots would form in a patient’s diseased heart at The Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

An MRI scan could not clearly identify the stagnant blood flow – but the software predicted the clot’s location correctly.

Prof Petford, and Bournemouth hospital radiologist Dr Roger Patel, are seeking funding to follow patients with heart defects over several years to test out predictions.

Dr Roger Patel cautioned: “It will take 5-10 years to develop and it would finesse treatment for a minority of patients on the blood thinning drug Warfarin.”

Prof Petford was studying ‘proto-planets’ – the clumps of meteorites that smashed into each other until a large enough clump formed the earth.

For the first time, he was able to model the flow of metal in the meteorites over tiny, irregular surfaces like grains of rock.

That could then be used to model blood flow over the irregular surfaces of the heart.

Prof Petford said: “People might think why are we working on something like this? There was no economic reason to do it.

“But without this research you wouldn’t have got that knowledge transfer to medicine.

“This is why curiosity driven research is important.”

The molten metal from the meteorites formed the earth’s core.

The core is the size of the moon and produces the magnetic field that give us the north and south poles and enables us to survive by blocking the sun’s most harmful radiation.