CORDA was founded in February 1976 by cardiac surgeon Donald Longmore and computer development pioneer John Stephenson to fund Longmore's pioneering work and other similar research projects into the prevention of heart disease.
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Donald Longmore was a surgeon in the early days of cardiac surgery in the 1960s and a pioneer of heart transplantation. Supported by a grant from the British Heart Foundation, he set up a laboratory and team to transplant hearts and lungs, culminating human transplants. He was a key member of the team that performed the first heart transplant in the UK in 1967.
Longmore was convinced that most cardiac surgery dealt with manifestations of arterial disease. His friend Sir John Vane had made the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of Prostacyclin, which held the promise of a greater understanding of how arterial disease caused blockages of the arteries to vital organs, ultimately causing coronary disease and stroke. (Vane later became a supporter of CORDA and a patron until his death.)
Once the process of heart disease was understood, it was logical to see if it could be prevented or reversed. But that meant finding a method of detecting the disease process long before patients had any symptoms.
Longmore believed that any method of detecting disease at an early stage had to be safe, painless and not cause any distress. The results of any test must be unambiguous and not require expert interpretation. He also considered that, in an ideal world, subjects could be tested in the community rather than having to travel to a hospital. Finally, any testing and preventive measures should cost substantially less than the management of end-stage disease and clearly offer savings in the healthcare budget.
Longmore realised that solving this imaging problem would require sophisticated computers with complex software. But at this time - in the early 1970s - computers were relatively new and very expensive. Yet computer expert John Stephenson was so impressed with Longmore's aims and enthusiasm that he worked with Keith Beddows, European technical director for Varian Data Machines, to build a complete system from spares.
The result was the Hammersmith GEC machine which continuously measured the endomyocardial viability ratio, a parameter capable of predicting the outcome of treatment. Using this, Longmore and his physicist assistant David Firmin (now Professor Firmin) became the first to develop magnetic resonance scans (MR) to study the heart.
Stephenson then suggested to Longmore that they form a charity to fund his work and other projects researching the prevention of heart disease. It was registered as a company limited by guarantee in February 1976 and initially called HEART, an acronym for Heart Exploration and Research in Therapy.
The charity's name was changed to CORDA in September 1982, but the original articles of association remain unchanged. The objective was to raising funds to sponsor research into a method of detecting the onset of cardiovascular disease by quick, painless and non-invasive means (that is, without the need for x-rays).
Longmore recruited Sir Robert Carr, formerly Home Secretary (later Lord Carr), as CORDA's first chairman. Stephenson became vice-chairman.
The first meeting chaired by Lord Carr was held on 25 May 1976. This was attended by influential people from the world of industry and commerce, most of whom subsequently joined the board. They also got support from three Nobel prize winners, five fellows of the Royal Society, two government advisers, the chairman of the Committee of Safety of Medicines and representatives of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, Physicians and Pathologists. These key people formed the Scientific Advisory Council (SAC) and with their aid and guidance the charity became a significant organisation in the fight against cardiovascular disease.
During its first two years, CORDA raised enough funds to establish the world's first cardiovascular magnetic resonance unit under the auspices of the Royal Brompton Hospital. CORDA provided two more MR machines and its scientists, doctors, clinical scientists and engineers later designed and built the world's fastest and most powerful MR machine.
This machine was installed in a converted Metroliner double decker bus to be used in the community to prove that population screening was practical. The CORDA bus, with the original magnetic resonance machine, is now housed in the Science Museum.
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