Professor Nicola Smart

Following a PhD at the University of London, Nicola undertook postdoctoral research at King’s College London, exploring the signalling pathways that underlie ischaemic injury, and at University College London, focussing on myocardial and coronary vessel development. Studies of the embryonic heart, including the identification of multipotent cardiovascular progenitors, are instructive towards understanding how to manipulate a regenerative response in the adult and this paradigm is the underlying basis of Nicola’s research. In 2012, Nicola relocated to the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford. Her research, focussing on the development and regeneration of the coronary vasculature, is funded by the British Heart Foundation Ian Fleming Senior Fellowship. Nicola was a founding nucleus group member of the ESC Scientists of Tomorrow and is currently a nucleus group member of the ESC Working Group on Cardiovascular Regenerative and Reparative Medicine.