The Swiss Heart Foundation supported cardiovascular research with around 2.6 million Swiss francs in 2014. This means that 44 applications will receive a grant and can be started.
The Swiss Heart Foundation has supported almost 600 selected research projects in the broad field of cardiovascular diseases and stroke since its foundation in 1967. They have contributed significantly to the advances from which many heart and stroke patients benefit today in the form of improved examination, treatment, rehabilitation and prevention measures.
Their chances of survival are significantly higher than before, and their quality of life is better. For healthy individuals, research has uncovered effective prevention options.
Nevertheless, there are still many problems and questions that remain open and demand answers from research. This is countered by the fact that the gap between the funds invested in cardiovascular research and the number of good-quality projects and the funds requested for them has widened in recent years. The Swiss Heart Foundation is trying to narrow this gap and has increased its investment in research from CHF 2.2 to 2.6 million. This makes it possible to grant about 40% of the amount requested in funds.
Four main areas
The largest share is accounted for by projects investigating arteriosclerosis, followed by stroke projects and research projects on heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias.
Other projects supported include heart valves, imaging techniques, and atypical triggers of angina symptoms.
“This makes the Swiss Heart Foundation – alongside government research support from the Swiss National Science Foundation – the most important nationally active non-profit funding organization for cardiovascular research in Switzerland,” says Prof. Augusto Gallino, MD, Chairman of the Swiss Heart Foundation’s Research Commission, which evaluates the applications. This is also urgently needed, because: “Many more projects were submitted than we were able to consider. The possible impression that cardiovascular diseases will soon be conquered is deceptive.”
According to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 published in 2012, 24.4% of all deaths worldwide are due to diseases caused by a lack of blood flow to the heart or brain. Together with all other cardiovascular diseases, the figure adds up to about 30%; in Switzerland, the figure is about 35%. By comparison, the totality of the once most feared infectious diseases results in about 20% of all deaths.
Brochure with visions
In a recently published brochure, the Swiss Heart Foundation uses interviews to present thrusts and new findings from five significant areas: Myocardial infarction (coronary artery disease), cerebral stroke, atrial fibrillation, arteriosclerosis and peripheral arterial disease, and valvular heart disease.
Patient stories bring readers closer to the clinical pictures and treatments. In addition, there are brief descriptions of the projects that the Swiss Heart Foundation has funded and approved in the past two years.
“In the research we support, the focus should not be on the ambition for the latest results, but on the individual person with his or her hope for new findings against his or her suffering,” says Prof. Ludwig K. von Segesser, MD, President of the Swiss Heart Foundation and Director of Cardiovascular Research at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois Lausanne: “We are therefore dedicating this brochure in particular to the patients, who are ultimately always at stake, and to the people who, in a grateful way, make this commitment possible for us with their donations.”
- The brochure “The Swiss Heart Foundation’s Research Funding. Insights into Swiss Cardiovascular Research” (in German and French) can be obtained from the Swiss Heart Foundation, Schwarztorstrasse 18, P.O. Box 368, 3000 Bern 14, docu@swissheart.ch or on the Internet at www.swissheart.ch/publikationen.
Source: Media release of the Swiss Heart Foundation
CARDIOVASC 2013; 12(6): 26
