Despite medical advances, one in four Australians will die from cardiovascular disease.

That's a life every 12 minutes yet experts still don't understand why heart attack, stroke and coronary heart disease develop and progress differently in each patient.

But now, pioneering technology harnessed at Sydney's Heart Research Institute is poised to revolutionise diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

In the process, personalised medicine is set to become a reality for every heart.

The institute is exploring the use of fluxomics, which enables the real-time observation of changes within cells to identify the molecular fingerprint unique to an individual's condition.

Leading the cutting-edge approach is noted bioanalytical chemist Sergey Tumanov for whom the project is personal: his father has survived two heart attacks and his grandfather died of one.

"We need to move beyond ... 'one size fits all' (practices) based on large population groups to instead look at how each person is uniquely affected ... and to understand what happens at the cellular level in each," he said.

"We need to characterise healthy cell metabolism in order to then understand how and when these normal processes go awry."

Essentially, fluxomics takes a big-picture view.

"Currently, we have static images or snapshots of the cell's genome, proteome and lipidome, whereas fluxomics gives the equivalent of a film or moving picture, demonstrating how the cell changes over time," Dr Tumanov explained.

"This is particularly important for understanding diseases that affect the heart and blood vessels, which constantly change as the heart beats and the body moves."

The advance is expected to help develop better biomarkers to detect disease earlier, and improve treatments to prevent further damage.

Personalised treatments can then be designed with more impact and fewer side effects.

"We also want to be able to understand a person's lifelong risk of disease and develop a personalised plan for a healthy heart," Dr Tumanov said.

Despite the possibilities, the only requirement from the patient might be a series of simple blood tests.

The Heart Research Institute needs public donations for a state-of-the-art mass spectrometer that will allow them to deeply analyse molecular changes over time.

The fluxomics machine, which looks like a computer drive and is the size of a small fridge, will create a database of molecular fingerprints that will then help doctors decipher the unique biological needs of each patient.