Dr. David Strain (UK)
Dr. Strain graduated from Liverpool University and initially embarked on a career in cardiology. In 2000, he moved to London and started work in the International Centre for Cardiovascular Health, where he completed an MD on “The ethnic difference in the effects of insulin resistance on the vasculature”, during which he described a marker of microcirculatory autoregulatory dysfunction. This measure, now known as “the Strain index”, statistically accounts for the associations between left ventricular hypertrophy, urinary albumin excretion and, in Europeans at least, coronary atherosclerotic load.
After completion of his clinical training, he moved to the University of Exeter Medical School (formally Peninsula Medical School), where he has attained a National Institute of Healthcare Research Clinical Senior Lecturer Award Fellowship to continue his research. He currently works in a research team exploring the aetiopathogenic mechanisms of a diverse range of vascular disease, from stroke to diabetic cardiomyopathy. He was the UK Chief investigator for the Diabetes in the Elderly trial that explored the feasibility of setting individualized treatment targets for older people with diabetes. This reported recently in the Lancet and is the basis for one of his current projects which plans to look at the longer term benefit from individualizing treatment for older patients.
He is also chairing the steering committee that includes Sir Michael Hirst, current president of the International Diabetes Federation, working on the “Time 2 Do More” project. This aims to address the phenomenon of “clinical inertia” by encouraging patients and physicians to communicate more effectively and respond appropriately to changes in patient circumstances.
