Mission

Our Mission

The DZHK has a clear mission: We want to develop new therapies and diagnostic procedures that have an impact on the lives of people suffering from cardiovascular diseases. To achieve this, we aim to rapidly and efficiently transfer results from basic research into clinical practice. This is why the DZHK brings together outstanding basic and clinical researchers from seven partner sites in Germany. We foster co-operation between scientists with the aim of developing synergies and thus accelerating the process of translation. The DZHK primarily invests its funds in the translation process based on a co-ordinated research strategy and specific funding instruments.

The DZHK was established in 2012 on the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In addition to the DZHK, there are five more German Centres for Health Research which are dedicated to research into widespread diseases.

Loss of Healthy Life Years

Cardiovascular diseases continue to increase and are still the number one cause of death in Germany. They burden the health system far more than cancers and they are often chronic, depriving people of healthy years of life compared to other diseases. So more and more people live for a very long time with heart failure, heart valve diseases or heart rhythm abnormalities. Our healthcare system and research must respond to this growing problem and ageing population.

Joining Forces to Fight Heart Disease

Research at the DZHK is intended to help reduce the number of people dying from cardiovascular diseases and improve the quality of life of those affected. Our research focuses on heart diseases that are very common in the general population. These include heart failure, heart attack, atrial fibrillation and sudden cardiac death.