University researchers have been awarded almost £450,000 to develop a device to prevent heart attacks.

Scientists at the University of Brighton are embarking on a three-year project to refine expandable stainless steel stents which can be inserted in patients' arteries, forcing them to stay open.

Stents have been available since the early Nineties but until now they have been prone to "furring", meaning some patients have had to undergo repeated operations to replace them.

The team, from the university's School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences department, hopes to find a way to prevent this, making stents easier to maintain.

If the project is successful, stents will prove vital in the fight against coronary artery disease, the furring and blocking of the vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart. It is the biggest cause of death and major disabilities in Europe and North America. The most common treatment at the moment is heart bypass surgery.

The work is to be partly funded by the £447,000 grant given to the team by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, University of Leeds and two industrial partners will also take part in the project, which will cost £1.3 million overall.

Professor Andrew Lloyd, head of University of Brighton's biomedical research group, which is involved in the project, said: "This major multi-centre grant will allow leading international multi-disciplinary research centres to work closely with industrial and clinical partners to develop improved treatments for this disease."