ERS Award for Lifetime Achievement in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension 2019

Nick Morrell is the British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiopulmonary Medicine at the University of Cambridge, UK.

He has been involved in the field of pulmonary circulation research for nearly thirty years and has published over 250 research articles in this field. In particular, his group has contributed to understanding how mutations in the bone morphogenetic protein type II receptor (BMPR-II) cause the majority of cases of heritable pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) via loss of function in BMP signalling and has exploited this knowledge for the development of new approaches to treat PAH.

His research includes the use of mouse genetic models, human and mouse cells and tissues, including progenitor cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, as well as experimental medicine studies in patients with PAH. In 2015, he co-founded a university spin-out company to develop bone morphogenetic proteins as a potential new treatment for PAH. He is the Research Director of the Pulmonary Vascular Diseases Unit at Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, a national referral centre for patients with PAH. He leads the UK National Cohort Study of Idiopathic and Heritable Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension and the International Consortium for Genetic Studies in PAH. He is the Director of the Cambridge Heart and Lung Research Institute.

Prof. Morrell is a UK National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator and was elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2011. He has served on the scientific steering committee of the World Symposium on Pulmonary Hypertension, chairing the Genetics and Genomics Task Force. He is a founding Fellow of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute and co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Pulmonary Circulation.