{"id":307475,"date":"2026-02-20T05:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T05:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/307475\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T05:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T05:50:12","slug":"cork-citys-cian-wins-funding-for-heart-research-in-oxford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/307475\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork city&#8217;s Cian wins funding for heart research in Oxford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">A medical scientist from Cork city has been awarded full funding to join an international project at Oxford University, dedicated to curing inherited heart conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Cian O\u2019Connell, who is living with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), the same heart condition his father died from at 49 years old, was awarded the funding by CRY Ireland, a national charity that supports patients and families affected by sudden cardiac death or those living with an inherited cardiac condition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">An estimated 10,000 people in Ireland carry gene mutations for inherited heart conditions, with one young person dying suddenly each week from such syndromes, according to CRY.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">CALL-OUT<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The charity has launched a call-out for people to support its research partnership with Mr O\u2019Donnell, to see him through his three-year PhD.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">During his time in Oxford, the Douglas native will take up a research position with the \u00a330m (\u20ac34.3m) British Heart Foundation-funded CureHeart project team, where he will develop and test functional cures for mutations that cause inherited heart conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Mr O\u2019Donnell said that, through his research, he hopes to \u201cmake an impact towards curing these diseases and fixing them at their root cause\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cIn 2010, my family\u2019s world was turned upside down when my dad Aonghus, who was a heart surgeon working in Cork, died from a lethal arrhythmia caused by the genetic heart condition, HCM,\u201d he said. \u201cIn 2019, I began to experience a rapid onset of cardiac symptoms that led to me being diagnosed with HCM \u2014 the same genetic heart condition as my dad \u2014 and having a defibrillator implanted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cThe CureHeart project was established at Oxford in 2022, and soon after, I decided to do everything I could to pursue joining it. At the start of 2025, I was accepted into Oxford to work as part of its team, and I\u2019m proud to represent CRY throughout my work on the project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cAs a patient-researcher, I hope to make an impact towards curing these diseases and fixing them at their root cause, and to have eligible Irish patients involved in future social sciences and clinical studies at CureHeart if feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">To make a donation to CRY, to support their sponsorship of Mr O\u2019Donnell, visit https:\/\/cry.ie\/index.php\/donate\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A medical scientist from Cork city has been awarded full funding to join an international project at Oxford&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[33970,79,835,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-307475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-health-body","tag-cork-news","tag-education","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}