The CORRIB Core Lab

A powerful motto can at once inspire and instil belief. When it is one that has helped shape the career of one of the world’s foremost cardiologists, it brings with it an altogether deeper sense of empowerment.

“Nothing is impossible,” is the mantra adopted by Professor Patrick Washington Serruys while studying cardiology at the University of Leuven. Now, at the helm of the university’s CORRIB Core Lab, he retains the same ambitious outlook, which was nurtured by studying in Flanders.

Professor Serruys is an established professor of Interventional Medicine and Innovation at NUI Galway. His vision and ability to push the boundaries of medicine has advanced patient care over decades. “We believe we have to change certain ways in which heart patients are treated,” says Prof Serruys. “My whole life, what I have been doing is puncturing the groin of the patient, or the wrist of the patient, to diagnose and to guide surgery. That technique is 50 years old. It is time to change.”

The professor’s philosophy and a thirst for betterment led him to devise the drug eluting stent and a fully biodegradable version of the device – breakthroughs in coronary care.

That same motivation now drives the CORRIB Core Lab team, pioneering the next generation of treatment for heart patients in a centre of excellence for innovation, research, collaboration and education.

Professor Serruys is working closely with his associate and former student William Wijns, NUI Galway Professor of Interventional Cardiology. In its most simplistic form, they have a team of highly skilled specialists using cutting-edge imaging technology and decades of cardiovascular expertise to independently and objectively examine and investigate cardiovascular images and data of patients from around the world.

Professor Tim O’Brien, Dean of the university’s College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, explains it: “The very strong ethos of patients’ needs always coming first resonates throughout all we do here.”

The careers of Professor Serruys and Professor Wijns have overlapped. They have collaborated at the vanguard of new practices and devices and both hold a gold medal from the European Society of Cardiology. As fate would have it, the CORRIB Core Lab has reunited the master and student, with the global influence complemented by Professor Yoshi Onuma and Professor Osama Soliman.

The collaboration was instigated by Professor Wijns, who says: “Bringing the professors and their teams to Galway gives me amazing personal satisfaction – like the feeling of paying back part of what my mentor has given to me. More importantly, incredible opportunities for clinical research have materialised and will continue, much to the benefit of the community here and further afield.”

The space to exert influence is at the front end of device innovation. NUI Galway is a fresh academic atmosphere – one where they feed off the ecosystem and build more bridges between university, hospital and industry.

Professor Serruys and Professor Wijns believe that in this arena, they are at the precipice of a paradigm shift for heart patients. The motto from Leuven stands firm.

One of many clinical trials coordinated out of CORRIB Core Lab in 2020 is Fast Track, where, for the first time ever, heart patients at three major European hospitals are undergoing bypass surgery with surgeons guided solely by computer generated cardiovascular images.  “It is what we call ‘first in human’. It has never been done before. And this is where there is an extraordinary trust between doctor and patient,” adds Prof Serruys. 

The trial is ground-breaking; it will be less traumatic for a patient and could lead to dramatic healthcare savings.

A small team in a lab at NUI Galway – a global outlook and a revolutionary vision.

Rien n’est impossible.