The Independent Strategic Advisory Board (ISAB) for the MRC/BHF CoRE in Advanced Cardiac Therapies met for the first time in March 2026.
The advisory board fulfils an important role as a sounding board and critical friends to our leadership team.
Our mission – to regenerate injured hearts and reverse established damage with genetic medicines – requires us to navigate the challenges of identifying targets, delivering them to the heart, and then translating them into the clinic. By any stretch, this is a complex journey that will require us to solve problems as we go.
The ISAB bring a range of experiences from the commercial, investment, academic, clinical and communications fields and, importantly, lived experience as a cardiac patient.
The board met for the first time, alongside our leadership team and representatives from our funders, after the recent REACT symposium in London.
Professor Douglas Mann, Chair of the ISAB, commented:
"It was a pleasure to learn more about the breadth of work already underway across REACT, including the portfolio of research projects and increasingly collaborative community. This is a centre that is well placed to push one or more transformative therapies forward for patients living with heart failure.”
At their meeting, the ISAB emphasised a number of hurdles REACT will need to navigate to bring new therapies to clinical trial, particularly shifting investor interest in delivery modalities and challenges regarding safety evaluations. The context and experience our ISAB members bring in these areas will be invaluable.
As a new virtual centre, REACT faces a particular challenge in balancing support for a growing research environment exploring cardiovascular gene therapies while pursuing a product-focused mission to accelerate translation of the most promising therapies from lab bench to patient bedside.
The centre's leadership and operations teams will engage further with REACT staff and students to co-develop approaches in line with our agreed ways of working.
Dr Nicola Haines, Chief Operating Officer, reflected on the board's contributions:
"Having discussed all that was achieved in REACT’s first year, we were pleased to hear that the ISAB recognised the strong level of high-quality science, continued enthusiasm and excellent engagement of our researchers, particularly those in the earlier stages of their careers. We are grateful for the support of the board members and look forward to working more closely as we progress our mission."
We look forward to our next meeting with the ISAB in November.
You can find more information on our governance pages.
