Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
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- Professor of Cardiology
- Clinical Science
- Institute of Cardiovascular Science
- Faculty of Pop Health Sciences
James is a Professor of Cardiology UCL, London and the Clinical Director of Imaging at Barts Heart Centre (BHC), and medical director of Chenies Mews Imaging centre. Formerly, he set up and lead the Heart Hospital Imaging Centre. Barts Heart Centre has 3 dedicated CMR scanners (2 1.5T Aeras and a 3T Prisma). The centre is at scale – estimates of annual activity are 9,000 CMR scans, 3000 nuclear scans, 5500 CT scans and 60,000 echos. CMIC has 2 dedicated CMR scanners
Trained at Cambridge and Oxford, his MD
at Imperial was ‘myocardial tissue characterization by CMR’. His current
research group of 10 fellows have particular interests in measuring
diffuse myocardial fibrosis (health, disease); iron, fat infiltration and amyloid using "T1
mapping". He has published more than 300 papers and works in
partnership with Pharma to develop surrogate endpoints for clincical trials
including first in man studies. Another interest is in making scans faster/cheaper and in
improving/maintaining quality as CMR expands. He set up and leads the international T1 mapping development group
aiming to "coordinate activity to the goal of being able to change therapy
using CMR endpoints". He is a former
board member of SCMR, the immediate past president of the British equivalent,
BSCMR. He is a former member of NICE.


Research interests:
I am interested in better understanding heart disease to improve patient care through therapies with a particular interest in myocardium. I am particularly know for the use of cardiac MRI and in developing mapping techniques to bridge clinical and basic investigators. My team focus on technical development, translation, creation and standardization of new biomarkers, delivery of surrogate endpoints, defining new diseases, quality control, training, enabling others.
Senior academic team/collaborators:
1. Professor Peter Kellman, NIH (visiting professor UCL and Barts)
2. Professor Marianna Fontana, Deputy director, National Amyloid Centre and Director, CMR
3. Dr Charlotte Manisty: Senior Lecturer in Heart failure and CMR UCL and Barts
4. Dr Gaby Captur, senior lecturer in rare diseases and health/aging, UCL, Barts and Royal Free
5. Dr Tom Treibel, senior lecturer, BHF Intermediate, UCL and Barts
6. Dr Rhodri Davies, senior lecturer, machine learning for medical imaging, UCL and Barts
7. Dr Luis Lopes, senior lecturer, genetic cardiomyopathy UCL and Barts
8. Dr Guy Lloyd December: Echo lead (former president BSE, BSE secretary)
9. Dr Christos Bourantas (invasive imaging) UCL and Barts
10. Dr Leon Menezes, lead in nuclear cardiology across UCLH and Barts
11. Dr Viviana Maestrini, senior lecturer, La Sapienza, Rome
12. Dr Rebecca Kozor, senior lecturer, director of CMR, University of Sydney, Australia
13. Dr Camilla Torlasco, senior lecturer, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Director of CMR, Milan
Currently 14 fellows in the team
In collaboration with Dr Francesca Pugliese (CT) and Prof Steffen Petersen
Research metrics:
H index (google scholar) 83, citations 36,000, 429 papers on Pubmed
Current Imaging Facilities:
Barts Heart Centre, the largest cardiac centre in Europe. Opened in May 2015, serving a population of upto 6million. There are 250 beds, 9 operating theatres and 9 cath labs.
Capacity: Barts Heart Centre: CMR: 2x Aera, 1x Prisma; CT: 1x Force; Echo: 15 machines; Nuclear: 4 sites inc PET-CT. Capacity (pa): 9000 CMRs, 5500 CTs, 60,000 echos, 2500 nuclear cardiac scans.
Chenies Mews Imaging Centre, part of the UCL phenotyping centre: 2x CMR (1xAera, 1xPrisma): 8 clinic rooms, DEXA, Echo, CPEX, and space for 30 researchers (Professors Alun Hughes and Nish Chaturvedi teams).
Example current projects:
COVIDsortium (20 papers inc 1 nature, 2 Science, 3 Lancet, 1 EHJ, Circulation)
AS700 (7 centres - including 166 biopsies in aortic stenosis to date)
Fabry400 (4 centres)
T1MES program (79 centres)
REDCap for UK research (250 projects),
CMR insights in athletes
Cardio-orthopaedics
MRI for pacemakers
Perfusion mapping collaboration (15 sites)
Developing world CMR (9 countries)
NIH collaboration for clinical validation of new sequences
I was for 5 years web editor of www.scmr.org - the leading web based source of information on cardiac MRI. My team has recorded 1000s of CMR lectures over the last decade. For 10 years, I have run a visiting course fellowship for CMR. I lead a program - www.rapidcmr.com to initiate rapid CMR in LMIC countries embedded in healthcare, currently active in 10 countries. We train people in MRI for pacemakers: www.mrimypacemaker.com
2003 | Doctor of Medicine | University of London | |
1998 | Member of the Royal College of Physicians | Royal College of Physicians | |
1995 | Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery | University of Oxford | |
1992 | Bachelor of Arts | University of Cambridge |