Asif AhmedFRSB is a British entrepreneurial scientist. He is responsible for founding Aston Medical School, the first medical school to be established in the city of Birmingham after 200 years. Aston Medical School has social mobility and leadership at the core of its model without compromising entry standards. Ahmed's discoveries and his disruptive approach have led to new clinical trials designed to treat the deadliest maternal hypertensive disorder, preeclampsia. He is widely recognized as the first person to propose and initiate the first clinical trial on statins to ameliorate severe preeclampsia. He has a longstanding interest in the mechanisms of vascular endothelial growth factor signalling, endothelial cell protection and has developed new strategies for preventing preeclampsia. Asif Ahmed is the inaugural Executive Dean of Aston Medical School and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Aston University. He holds the Chair of Vascular Biology and the 50th Anniversary Chair of Translational Medicine. In addition, he is the KAU Distinguished Adjunct Professor at King AbdulAziz University and an Honorary Professor at the Jilin University Hospital. His main area of research is preeclampsia, angiogenesis and gaseous signalling molecules. He established the Aston Medical Research Institute, a university-wide multidisciplinary translational research entity at Aston University. Asif Ahmed is also the founder and the Chairman of MirZyme Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical to be the first spin out company from Aston Medical School, focused on maternal and child health.
Asif Ahmed conceived the concept of Aston Medical School and as its architect led in its development. The opening of Aston Medical School makes Birmingham the only UK city outside London to have two medical schools separated by 200 years. He developed a new model of medical education in the UK, with a focus on social mobility, international connectivity and business acumen, delivered at a lower cost to the public purse. This model was recognised and endorsed by the Minister for Universities at the time, The RT Hon David Willetts. Aston Medical School opened as a research and postgraduate school in June 2014 and was awarded approval to admit undergraduate medical students by the General Medical Council in 2017. Aston Medical School is the fifth school at Aston University. The first cohort of undergraduate medical students in its MBChB course started in September 2018. The MBChB course has a unique business leadership component linked to medicine which will be delivered in conjunction with Aston Business School. The ethos of widening participation is supported through the Sir Doug Ellis Pathway to Healthcare programme. The programme is named after former Aston Villa FC Chairman Sir Doug Ellis who has financially supported the programme. This programme enables 16–18 years old students to see if they are interested in studying medicine or other health related professions and teaching them social skills as well as academic skills. In July 2018, over 95% of the ‘Pathway students’ graduated from the programme, over 90% will be going to University and one third of them are going to study Medicine.
Research Interests
Ahmed’s laboratory was amongst the first to signal the importance of vascular growth factors in pregnancy and pioneered the concept of angiogenic imbalance theory in preeclampsia in the mid-1990s. In 2000, he discovered that the enzyme placental heme oxygenase which protects the human placenta against injury and went on to identify carbon monoxide, the gaseous product of HO, as an inhibitor of anti-angiogenic proteins. Soluble Flt-1, the natural anti-VEGF factor in circulation, is increasingly recognized as a major factor responsible for the clinical signs of preeclampsia. Professor Ahmed identified soluble Flt-1 as the single most important molecule responsible for the angiogenic imbalance in preeclampsia by demonstrating that the removal of soluble Flt-1 from preeclamptic samples restored angiogenic balance which was later confirmed in vivo by others. The identification that increasing HO activity could provide protection against preeclampsia formed the basis for the world’s first randomized controlled clinical trial on statins in pregnancy, StAmP Trial.
