HRI 2016 Annual Review

THE JOURNEY OF A SCIENTIST

Celebrating the journey of a scientist

HEART RESEARCH INSTITUTE 2016 ANNUAL REVIEW

THE JOURNEY OF A SCIENTIST

It has been said that ‘science is a journey in search of a destination’.

This Annual Review celebrates the journey taken by all of our scientists.

From our PhD students who are being heavily influenced by their mentors.

To our post-doctoral scientists who are seeking to establish their own research identity. To our Group Leaders who lead their own scientific themes and inspire the journeys of others within their team. And finally, to our alumni, who are now having great impact and influence elsewhere in the world of medical research.

They are all the sum of their experiences, their collaborations, and their mentors.

We wish them all well as they continue their great scientific journey.

04 Journey

to become a Scientist 06 Journey to become a Group Leader 08 Journey from the HRI and Beyond: Our Alumni 10 The HRI in 2016 12 Chairman’s report 14 Director of Cardiovascular Research Report 16 2016 Research Highlights 19 2016 Media Highlights 20 Applied Materials Group 22 Cardio Imaging Group 24 Cardiometabolic Group 26 Cardiovascular Medical Device Group 28 Cell Therapeutics Group 30 Clinical Research Group 32 Free Radical Group 34 Heart Rhythm and Stroke Prevention Group 36 High Blood Pressure Group 38 Immunobiology Group 40 Inflammation Group 42 Thrombosis Group 44 Translational & Bioengineering Research Group 46 Vascular Complications Group 48 Vascular Immunology Group 50 Marcus Blackmore Fellowships 52 Scholarships 54 Post Graduate Student Program 56 Conferences and Presentations 60 Publications 64 Board of Governors 60 International Board 69 Members of the Institute 70 Fundraising Report 76 Operations Report

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THE JOURNEY TO BECOME A SCIENTIST

Below is the typical pathway for a student looking to commence a career in medical research. As you’ll see, only the best of the best make it to the starting line. Before even securing their first paid postdoctoral job, our researchers must maintain a distinction average in undergraduate study, graduate with First Class Honours, complete a PhD on a unique research topic, spend hours in the lab, demonstrate a high work ethic, produce a thesis and publish their work in distinguished peer reviewed journals.

HIGH SCHOOL

BACHELOR

HONOURS

University of Sydney science degrees attract the best and brightest high school students. To be successful, year 12 students must achieve an HSC score of 90% or more.

During a three-year Bachelor of Science, or similar, undergraduate students must maintain an average mark of 75 or more to be eligible for Honours. The higher the better.

This is the year that the really promising researchers stand out.

With no lectures or course work, the Honours year is the first time students spend every day in the lab working on a unique research topic that they must drive. Being smart isn’t enough.

To be successful, students must have practical skills and excellent written expression. They must have expertise in experimental planning and demonstrate a high work ethic in the lab, while also completing an 80-page thesis. To continue on a career path in science, First Class Honours is a must.

90%

75%

HSC SCORE

AV E R A G E S C O R E

80+ PA G E T H E S I S

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Journey to Become a Scientist

PHD

Students must compete against other high-performing peers to win an Australian Post Graduate Award (APA). This is a Commonwealth Government scholarship to assist with living expenses. Getting an APA is harder each year, making entering into a PhD highly competitive. The standard successful applicant has a score of 87 or higher First Class Honours from The University of Sydney. The average PhD takes three years, with the subject chosen in consultation with the student’s mentor. This research theme is often the path they’ll continue to follow for the rest of their scientific careers.

So excellent mentorship at this stage is vital.

AUSTR ALIAN POST G R A D U AT E AWA R D

APA

POSTDOCTOR AL FELLOWSHIP

THE FINAL STEP

Postdoctoral students compete for a limited number of paid research jobs ideally they will win a fellowship to support them in the Group in which they work. The success rate for fellowships at the level is less than 10%. The pressure to continually publish high quality work throughout the next three and a half years is constant. Increased funding uncertainty means researchers must fight for their jobs every year.

Australia also encourages (almost insists) on your first postdoctoral job being overseas at a prestigious institute – meaning two to three years overseas before coming home.

Lastly, ‘success’ is usually only defined in short cycles. Success at winning a grant at a grant or fellowship means funding for three years. To dedicate your career to science and become a professor, you must maintain quality research year after year.

Even grant success early in a career can mean running short of funding within a few years. Most academics and their research groups, such as our researchers at the HRI, are only two or three bad grant cycles away from running short of funds and staff.

The life-saving research they have dedicated their career to may never reach the patient’s bedside without the support from channels beyond the traditional peer reviewed system. This is why support from our donors has never been more vital.

2-3

3

YEARS OVERSEAS

YEARS OF FUNDING

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THE JOURNEY TO BECOME A GROUP LEADER

Group Leaders are the foundation of any medical research institute.

Each Group has their own unique research themes they are exploring and each Group Leader has had their own unique journey to get to the HRI. To demonstrate how this can vary we’ve profiled the path taken by two of our newest recruits, Dr Anna Waterhouse and Dr John O’Sullivan. As well as the journey of our Clinical Director, Professor David Celermajer, and our Director or Cardiovascular Research, Professor Shaun Jackson.

GR OU P LE A DE R

GR O U P L EA D ER

Dr Anna Waterhouse Dr Anna Waterhouse joined the HRI in 2016 as Group Leader of the Cardiovascular Medical Devices Group. Anna returns to the HRI from Harvard University where she was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Scientist at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering with Prof.

Don Ingber. Anna received her PhD from the University of Sydney and HRI on biomimetic coronary stent coatings to treat coronary artery disease under the supervision of Professor Tony Weiss, Associate Professor Martin Ng and Professor Marcela Bilek.

Anna’s research combines cardiovascular device engineering and biological interactions at material interfaces, aiming to understand how devices fail in order to create materials that interact with the body in a more biological way, mimicking the body’s own tissue.

Dr John O’Sullivan Dr John O’Sullivan joined the HRI in 2016 as Cardiometabolic Disease Group Leader.

John returns to the HRI from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital where he was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Clinical Observer. John received his medical degree from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and his PhD from University College Cork, in Ireland. He undertook internal medicine and cardiology training in Ireland. John’s research focusses on the cardiovascular effects of obesitydriven metabolic diseases, which together are the greatest health challenges in the modern era. Combining genomic and metabolomic profiling in carefully phenotyped patient cohorts, he has discovered several novel markers, effectors, and predictors of disease. Using animal and cellular models of disease, he has revealed the functional roles of these metabolites.

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The Journey to Become a Group Leader

CLIN ICA L DI R ECTOR

DI R ECTOR OF CAR D IOVAS C UL AR R ES EA R C H

Professor Shaun Jackson Professor Shaun Jackson completed his medical degree and Bachelor of Medical Science with double first class honors at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

He continued his clinical training at the Alfred and Box Hill Hospital campuses, as a clinical consultant in Haematology. In 1995 he obtained his PhD from Monash University examining novel mechanisms of platelet activation. For this work he received the inaugural Premier’s Award for Excellence in Medical Research and was awarded a R.D. Wright Research Fellowship. He was a co-founder of the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases in Melbourne and a founder of Kinacia, an Australian biotechnology company with a focus on preventing blood clotting. Today Professor Jackson is the Director of Cardiovascular Research at the HRI and the Group Leader of the Thrombosis Group. Shaun is also Research Director of Atherothrombosis services within the Department of Cardiology at the Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) hospital, and Adjunct Professor within the Dept. Molecular & Experimental Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, CA USA.

Professor David Celermajer Professor David Celermajer has been a Group Leader of the Clinical Research Group at the HRI since 1994 and in 2003 was appointed as our Clinical Director.

Having finished Dux of Sydney Grammar School, Professor Celermajer graduated from the University of Sydney with a medical degree in 1983, and won a Rhodes Scholarship that same year. He has a PhD in children’s heart disease from the University of London, which he received in 1993 and a higher-doctorate D.Sc. from the University of Sydney. He was the University Medallist at USyd Medicine in 1983, the World Debating and Public Speaking Champion in 1984, the Winner of RT Hall Prize and Eric Susman Medal for Research in 1984, the Winner of Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Health Research in 1998. In 2002, Celermajer was awarded the Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award For Excellence In Health And Medical Research, and in 2006, he was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. In 2014, he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for services as a researcher and clinician in the field of cardiovascular disease.

Professor Celermajer David also sits on the National Heart Foundation of Australia’s Cardiovascular Health Advisory Committee and is currently also a Board Member of the Menzies School of Health Research in the Northern Territory. Professor Celermajer’ s research areas of expertise include adult congenital heart disease, pulmonary hypertension, clinical cardiology and early origins of atherosclerosis.

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THE JOURNEY BEYOND THE HRI OUR ALUMNI

Over the past 28 years the HRI has trained and played a hand in developing the careers of some of Australian medical research’s brightest stars. Many of these alumni have gone onto have hugely influential careers throughout the healthcare sector. We’ve highlighted some of our most distinguished alumni below, Professor Len Kritharides, Professor Wendy Jessup, Professor Roland Stocker, Professor David Celermajer, Professor Paul Bannon.

A LU M NI

ALU M NI

Professor Wendy Jessup Professor Wendy Jessup completed her tertiary scientific training at the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield in the United Kingdom. She moved to Australia in 1989 to take up a position at the Heart Research Institute. She was promoted to leader of the Cell Biology Group in 1994, later also becoming Deputy-Director until shortly before her departure in 2002. Until the end of 2012 she was a Principal Research Fellow at the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and a Professor and Principal Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, where she co led the Macrophage Biology Group at the Centre for Vascular Research.

She is now a Principal Research Fellow in the Atherosclerosis Laboratory at the ANZAC Research Institute.

Professor Len Kritharides Professor Len Kritharides is Head of Department and Director of Cardiology at Concord Repatriation General Hospital (CRGH) Sydney, Professor of Medicine at The University of Sydney, Head of the Atherosclerosis Research Laboratory Group at the ANZAC Research Institute and Deputy Clinical Director of the Cardiovascular Stream of the Sydney Local Health District. In 1994 Len completed a PhD in macrophage biology at the Heart Research Institute (HRI).

After postdoctoral research at the HRI and in the USA, he took up an appointment as Staff Specialist in Cardiology at Concord Hospital in 1998 and became Head of Department in 2003. He was awarded a NSW Government Community Services Award for his contribution to Concord Repatriation General Hospital in 2006, the President’s Medal for contributions to the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand in 2013, and Distinguished Researcher Award by the Australian Vascular Biology Society in 2014. He is currently Chair of the Cardiovascular Health and Advisory Committee of the National Heart Foundation and Chairs the Specialist Training Committee in Cardiology of the Royal Australian College of Physicians.

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The Journey Beyond the HRI Our Alumni

CLIN ICAL D IRECTOR

A LU M NI

Professor Stocker received his training as a biochemist at the ETH Zürich (Switzerland), ANU (Canberra, Australia) and the University of California (Berkeley, USA). Following an appointment as Assistant Professor at the University of Berne (Switzerland), Roland moved permanently to Australia in 1988 where he worked as Group Leader at the Heart Research Institute for 13 years, as a Professor at the Centre for Vascular Research at UNSW for 5 years, and as a Professorial Research Fellow at The University of Sydney for 6 years. He has been with the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute since December 2012. He has been an NHMRC Research Fellow since 1994, and a Senior Principal Research Fellow since 2001. He has been/is editorial board member of all major journals publishing in the area of redox biology. He regularly reviews for international journals, national and international granting agencies and has been/is a member of RGICs/GRPs of NHF, NHMRC and the NHMRC Academy.

A LU MNI

Professor Roland Stocker

Professor Paul Bannon Professor Bannon received his PhD from The University of Sydney and The Heart Research Institute in 1998.

Today he is Chairman of the Baird Institute for Applied Heart and Lung Surgical Research, Head of Department, Cardiothoracic Surgery at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney and holds the Chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery and the Bosch Chair of Surgery, The University of Sydney. He is President of the Australia and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons and is the Society representative to the Cardiac Surgery National Database. He is the Co-Chair of the Institute of Academic Surgery at RPAH where he also oversees the robotic surgical program. He heads the National MBS Taskforce Review for Cardiac Surgery and has held various positions in the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Professor David Celermajer Professor David Celermajer has been a Group Leader of the Clinical Research Group at the HRI since 1994 and in 2003 was appointed as our Clinical Director.

Having finished Dux of Sydney Grammar School, Professor Celermajer graduated from the University of Sydney with a medical degree in 1983, and won a Rhodes Scholarship that same year. He has a PhD in children’s heart disease from the University of London, which he received in 1993 and a higher-doctorate D.Sc. from the University of Sydney. He was the University Medallist at USyd Medicine in 1983, the World Debating and Public Speaking Champion in 1984, the Winner of RT Hall Prize and Eric Susman Medal for Research in 1984, the Winner of Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Health Research in 1998. In 2002, Celermajer was awarded the Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award For Excellence In Health And Medical Research, and in 2006, he was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. In 2014, he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for services as a researcher and clinician in the field of cardiovascular disease.

Professor Celermajer David also sits on the National Heart Foundation of Australia’s Cardiovascular Health Advisory Committee and is currently also a Board Member of the Menzies School of Health Research in the Northern Territory. Professor Celermajer’s research areas of expertise include adult congenital heart disease, pulmonary hypertension, clinical cardiology and early origins of atherosclerosis.

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THE HRI IN 2016

1 5 0 C O L L A B O R AT I O N S ACROSS 21 COUNTRIES

2016 GR A NT INCOME BY FUNDING BODY

44.99%

5.52%

National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)

Australian Research Council (ARC)

C I TAT I O N S B Y Y E A R

2.71%

National Heart Foundation (NHF)

36.95%

9.83%

NSW Government (MRSP)

Other

PERSONNEL

HRI INCOME

2016

1680

2016

227+

2015

1758

2015

169+

2014

1716

2014

156+

2013

1658

2012

1615

2011

1514

Donations 82% Government and others 18%

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L O C AT I O N S • 7 Eliza Street, Newtown • Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney D I R E C T O R O F C A R D I O VA S C U L A R RESEARCH Professor Shaun Jackson DEPUT Y DIRECTOR Professor Ben Freedman SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR Associate Professor Clare Hawkins CLINICAL DIRECTOR Professor David Celermajer CHAIRMAN Dr Stephen Hollings

WHO WE ARE

OUR VISION

The Heart Research Institute (HRI) is an internationally recognised medical research institute that performs cuttingedge cardiovascular research from our state-of-the-art facilities in Newtown, Sydney, Australia and The Charles Perkins Centre at The University of Sydney.

To improve global health through excellence in medical research.

15 X SCIENTIFIC GROUPS • Applied Materials • Cardiac Imaging • Cardiometabolic Disease (new in 2016) • Cardiovascular Medical Devices (new in 2016) • Cell Therapeutics • Clinical Research • Free Radical • Heart Rhythm and Stroke Prevention (new in 2016) • High Blood Pressure • Immunobiology • Inflammation • Translational Research and Bioengineering • Thrombosis • Vascular Complications • Vascular Immunology

OUR MISSION

By understanding the causes and complications of cardiovascular disease.

OUR AMBITION

To be the most influential cardiovascular research institute in Australia.

O U R PA R T N E R S H I P S • The University of Sydney • Royal Prince Alfred Hospital • The Charles Perkins Centre • Sydney Local Health District ‘Sydney Research’ scientific hub • ‘ Sydney Health Partners’ Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre ABN 41 003 209 952

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CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Dr Stephen Hollings BA (HONS) PhD, FAICD CHAIRMAN

The final Board Meeting for 2016 was the 149th Board Meeting of the Heart Research Institute, setting the Institute up for a milestone in 2017.

During those years, successive Boards have been committed to supporting science through fundraising, through providing the best possible facilities and equipment, by finding the very best scientific leaders and by funding collaboration whether by way of attendance at conferences, national and international exchanges, scholarships or other means.

All of this has been within the framework of sound governance.

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2016 has seen many of those committed scientific and clinical researchers put even more to the test.

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During that time successive Boards have received presentations from the HRI’s scientists, conducted scientific reviews and marvelled at the work being undertaken in the laboratories and at the desktops by highly committed researchers. 2016 has seen many of those committed scientific and clinical researchers put even more to the test as has the Board, with institutes around the country seeing the grant funding reaching their scientists at an alltime low, with the success rate of NHMRC grant applications having fallen steadily to around the 13 per cent level.

Therefore much of the Board’s time this year has been spent in three areas:

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C h a i r m a n’s R e p o r t

1 SUPPORTING THE DIRECTOR OF CARDIOVASCULAR RESEARCH Supporting the Director of Cardiovascular Research, Professor Shaun Jackson, in his drive to attract really excellent world-class early career researchers, to provide them with appropriate funding and a collaborative and fully resourced environment in which to work.

2 WORKING WITH OUR PARTNERS Working with our partners – The University of Sydney and its Charles Perkins Centre and the Sydney Local Health District in order to attract the brightest and the best scientists and provide them with the opportunities to flourish, as well as encouraging international transfers and exchanges with senior cardiovascular researchers around the world.

3 PROGRESSIVELY REVIEWING AND STRENGTHENING FUNDRAISING Progressively reviewing and strengthening fundraising – changing programmes, reviewing partners and engaging with The University of Sydney in an exciting joint philanthropic programme to support our committed scientific and clinical researchers.

Working collaboratively with The University of Sydney and the Sydney Local Health District, the HRI was able to attract two new Group Leaders from Harvard, Dr John O’Sullivan and Dr Anna Waterhouse during 2016, and both of whom are establishing their groups in the Charles Perkins Centre.

While 2016 also saw HRI lose some longterm Group Leaders who gained excellent appointments elsewhere – Professor Clare Hawkins, Dr Christina Bursill and Dr David Pattison – these moves should be seen in a positive light demonstrating the quality of the HRI’s people, while also providing the opportunity for renewal. To that end, the Director of Cardiovascular Research is actively looking to develop new groups within the HRI’s Eliza Street facility as well as at the Charles Perkins Centre.

Towards the end of 2016, the Scientific Committee of the Board, Chaired by Professor Len Kritharides, working with Professor Shaun Jackson, oversaw the international review of HRI’s science conducted by Professor John Cooke, Chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, and Director of the Centre for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Houston Methodist Research Institute in the Texas Medical Centre, Professor Bob Graham, Executive Director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Professor Ben Kile, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow and Joint Head of the ACRF Chemical Biology Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, and Professor Phil Hogg, Senior Principal Research Fellow at The University of Sydney. This review has played an important role in fine-tuning the scientific strategies of the HRI, while also reflecting HRI’s commitment to the Australian Government’s twin aims of greater collaboration between research institutions and more effective translation of that research to the bedside and patient outcomes and care.

The Fundraising team has continued to restructure and establish partnerships with new providers both in Australia and internationally in order to be able to deliver to the Institute’s strategy to support a growing number of world-class scientists.

In addition the fundraising team has been successful in assisting some of our scientific researchers to receive support from philanthropic foundations.

At the Chairman’s Brunch in December 2016, I had much pleasure in unveiling the Hearts for Eternity sculpture which celebrates all those who have left bequests in their wills and was very happy to be joined by members of a number of families where a loved one has provided a bequest to the Institute.

In 2016 the HRI benefitted from a number of very generous bequests.

The Institute is in a solid and strong financial position, well funded through a breadth of fundraising activities, has no debt with solid cash reserves and investment funds while the ownership of the HRI’s primary research facility at Eliza Street provides the Institute with a strong asset base.

The composition of the Board of Governors was largely stable during 2016, but tragically Professor Josette Eris was lost to the scientific and health community on April 14, 2016. She had served for eight years as a Governor and as I said at the time, Professor Eris was a most diligent Governor determined to ensure the highest quality of scientific research, championing research that could be translated to improved patient outcomes.

She was an inspiration, particularly to female medical researchers.

I am most grateful for the ongoing contribution of our Board of Governors, the International Trustees and our Honorary Solicitor, Rod Halstead, who shoulder an ever greater workload. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank all of our wonderful scientists and clinician researchers, our fundraisers and marketers and our operations team for their contribution towards the Institute. We recognise and thank all of our donors, large and small, in Australia and internationally. Your generosity supports the scientific and medical research teams to discover, develop and translate their work to the bedside.

DR STEPHEN HOLLINGS

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DIRECTOR OF CARDIOVASCULAR RESEARCH REPORT

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

HRI Executive Team: Professor Shaun Jackson, Richard Wylie, Elissa Dwyer, Dr Andrew Leech, Emeritus Professor Carolyn Geczy.

Professor Shaun Jackson MBBS, BMedSci, PhD

As I reflect on the last three years as the Director of Cardiovascular Research at the Heart Research Institute (HRI) and Charles Perkins Centre (CPC), there is much to celebrate on the research front, and even more importantly for the institute, many new exciting opportunities on the horizon.

The partnership between the HRI and The Charles Perkins Centre (CPC) is beginning to bear fruit with the recruitment of several new high calibre research groups to the HRI. We have established the first HRI-CPC Cardiovascular Symposium which was a tremendous success, and plans are now underway to establish a comprehensive annual Sydney Cardiovascular Symposium that aims to bring all stakeholders in cardiovascular research across NSW together for this annual event. We have also had great success in bringing together many of the key cardiovascular researchers at the HRI with our colleagues at The University of Sydney, The Sydney Local Health District and other local medical research institutes, notably the

Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, the Centenary Institute, as well as several of the high profile cardiovascular researchers at The George Institute. My many years of experience in Melbourne and in California have taught me that much more can be achieved when we work closely and productively together, and it is gratifying to see that HRI is playing an important role in facilitating stronger collaborative relations within the NSW cardiovascular community.

2016 has seen our expansive international recruiting campaign gain momentum. First, I’d like to welcome Dr John O’Sullivan to the HRI as Group Leader of the Cardiometabolic Disease Group. John joins the HRI from

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Director of Cardiovascular Research Repor t

For the first time in history, there are more obese people than underweight people in the world, creating a global time-bomb of cardiovascular disease.

Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital where he was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Clinical Observer. John’s research focusses on the cardiovascular effects of obesity-driven metabolic diseases, which together are the greatest health challenges in the modern era. Combining genomic and metabolomic profiling in carefully-phenotyped patient cohorts, he has discovered several novel markers, effectors, and predictors of disease. John has already made an impact since joining us, winning the CVRN 2016 Ministerial Award for Rising Stars in Cardiovascular Research, for demonstrating outstanding academic and research excellence in cardiovascular disease and related disciplines.

Next I’d like to welcome back to the HRI Dr Anna Waterhouse, who re-joins us as Group Leader of the Cardiovascular Medical Devices Group. Anna returns to the HRI from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University where she was a Research Scientist and completed her postdoctoral fellowship. Dr Waterhouse received her PhD from The University of Sydney and the Heart Research Institute in 2011, researching biomimetic coronary stent coatings to treat coronary artery disease under the supervision of Professor Tony Weiss, Associate Professor Martin Ng and Professor Marcela Bilek.

While I talk about scientific leaders returning to the HRI, I’d like to welcome back Professor Ben Freedman, who has re-joined us as Deputy Director Research Strategy, Heart Research Institute/The Charles Perkins Centre and Group Leader of the Heart Rhythm and Stroke Prevention Group. Ben’s research interests now focus on atrial fibrillation: indeed his group’s work on screening was

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nominated as a finalist in the Australian Innovation award in 2013. With five others, he formed the AF-SCREEN International Collaboration which now has over 130 members from 33 countries, including many of the foremost names in AF research.

Ben will be playing a pivotal role in the future of the HRI, helping me to optimise our collaborative partnerships with The University of Sydney and the Sydney Local Health District.

I would also like to welcome back Prof Carolyn Geczy, who was a group leader at HRI in the 90s before moving to UNSW, where amongst other roles, she was Associate Professor Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Medicine. Carolyn joins us as Scientific Director, and has already made a great impact in mentoring our early and mid career researchers and students, in submission of grants this year. She will make an important contribution to the scientific life and health of the Institute.

While we say hello to these new recruits, it is inevitable in medical research that we also say goodbye to others who have moved on to exciting opportunities interstate and overseas. I’d like to say a fond farewell to Professor Clare Hawkins, our former HRI Scientific Director, who has left us to take up and exciting opportunity at the Panum Institute, at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Clare is joined by her husband, also former HRI Group Leader, Dr David Pattison.

They both contributed a great deal to the HRI over many years and we wish Clare, David and their daughters the best of luck in their new European adventure.

We also say goodbye to Dr Christina Bursill who has returned to her hometown of Adelaide where she has accepted an appointment at The University of Adelaide to further her work to study HDL cholesterol in order to proactively improve cardiac stent biocompatibility. Christina will be greatly missed at the HRI. She has been a great role model for other young scientists through her dedication to research, even under the most challenging of circumstances.

We wish Christina and her family the very best in Adelaide.

I have always been impressed with the commitment and dedication of our researchers at HRI, which I must say,

has been sorely tested over the last few years with the hypercompetitive nature of medical research. At a time when cardiovascular research is needed more than ever, the cardiovascular medical research workforce is receiving the lowest rate of funding support from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in more than 75 years - with NHMRC project grant success rates at their lowest ebb of 13.7%.

This runs the risk of undermining the important development of medical breakthroughs that will have a major impact on Heart Health in the future. Further, we estimate there is at least 10 times the amount of funding available for cancer research in NSW from charities and government agencies compared to that for CVD research, even though the burden of disease is equal or greater for CVD. To this end the HRI, in partnership with Victor Chang Institute of Cardiac Research, with support from the NSW Heart Foundation, have engaged the NSW State Government to explore additional funding streams to better support cardiovascular medical research now and into the future.

None of the important work that we do at the HRI would be possible without the wonderful support we get from our fundraising team.

Their hard work helps raise the precious funds that keep our scientists in the lab searching for the cures of tomorrow. And of course I couldn’t congratulate our fundraisers without thanking the donors whose generosity enables so much of our science.

Finally, I’d like to thank my Executive Team, Richard Wylie, Elissa Dwyer, Carolyn Geczy, Ben Freedman, Andrew Leech and our Executive Assistant Vania Dauner for their hard work and support over the past 12 months. I would also like to acknowledge the wonderful support of our Chairman, Dr Stephen Hollings, who has worked tirelessly and selflessly for the organisation over the last five years.

PROFESSOR SHAUN JACKSON

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2016 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Zohra Kakall.

S I G N A L L I N G T H E B O DY T O C O N T R O L I N F L A M M AT O RY RESPONSES TO IMPL ANTS

U N D E R S TA N D I N G T H E M E C H A N I S M S T H AT D R I V E DISEASE

A core interest of the Applied Materials Group is understanding the body’s response to implanted materials. Poorly tolerated materials are walled off from the host tissue with a layer of dense scar-like material, leading to suboptimal implant performance. In collaboration with HRI Group Leader A/Prof Martin Ng, PhD student Richard Tan has developed a new material which actively signals the body to control inflammatory response to implants.

These materials direct the behaviour of the body’s early response system, instructing it to constructively repair the area around the implant. The work has significant implications for all medical implants, and for the development of better materials for vascular repair.

The Cardiac Imaging Group have developed a sophisticated framework to analyse aortic flow that measures the morphological, function and geometric properties of patients’ aorta (function-form), then uses 4D-flow data to quantify the haemodynamic parameters in great detail (e.g. wall shear stress, turbulence, velocity profiles etc). We can then relate these to the form-function in a way that allows us to understand the mechanisms that drive disease.

DISCOVERING NEW PAT H WAYS L I N K I N G L I V E R FAT T O D I A B E T E S The Cardiometabolic Disease Group have discovered a new therapy for Fatty Liver and Diabetes. The team recently discovered a new pathway that links liver fat to type 2 diabetes 12 years ahead of diagnosis in

two separate human cohorts. However, it is unknown if this new pathway can be used to treat fatty liver disease and/or diabetes. The group have organised the necessary expertise, transgenic models, and human cohorts to probe this pathway more thoroughly to assess its therapeutic potential.

D E V E L O P I N G S O P H I S T I C AT E D M AT E R I A L S F O R U S E AS MEDICAL DE VICES Understanding the interactions of medical devices with patients’ blood, proteins and cells will allow the development of more sophisticated and compatible materials for medical devices for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease. To achieve these goals the Cardiovascular Medical Devices Group utilise cuttingedge bioengineering tools to develop new methodologies to assess and understand the interplay of events at the biointerface. This includes immobilising proteins or creating anti-adhesive coatings and investigating the

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biological response at the interface of the materials using advanced microscopy and surface analysis tools.

S T U DY I N G T H E E F F E C T S OF COLCHICINE In detail, the Cell Therapeutics Group described for the first time the ability of colchicine to suppress the activity of inflammatory cells (monocytes) that play a key role in atherosclerosis. We also have been studying the effects of colchicine directly on atherosclerotic plaque in humans and mice.

MEASURING FITNESS AND HEART FUNCTION OF ARMY RECRUITS A particularly exciting project in 2016 for the Clinical Research Group was a study of Army recruits, carefully examined before basic training, after 16-weeks’ exercise and

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

then again (for half the group) after another 16 weeks of further advanced infantryrelated exercise. We measured fitness, fatness, heart function, metabolic health and the structure and function of all kinds of cholesterol, before, during and after exercise.

I D E N T I F Y I N G A N T I OX I DA N T S T H AT C A N P R E V E N T DA M A G E T O P R O T E I N S B Y I N F L A M M AT O RY OX I DA N T S Protein damage by oxidants can lead to the development of multiple inflammatory diseases. Our team in the Free Radical Group is characterising the reactions of a variety of natural and synthetic compounds that can rapidly scavenge these damaging oxidants with the aim of reducing arterial oxidative damage in atherosclerosis. Our current focus is on a range of sulphur and selenium-containing compounds in these studies, as well as a class of compounds called nitroxides.

Richard Tan, Dr Philippa Simpson, Dr Monica Lam.

ROLE OF MICROGLIA AND I N F L A M M AT I O N I N T H E R E G U L AT I O N O F A R T E R I A L BLOOD PRESSURE Traditionally, microglia – the macrophages of the brainstem – are not considered to play a soothing role in the regulation of neuronal function. Recently, the High Blood Pressure Group discovered that during epilepsy, microglia interact with sympathetic neurons in order to manage their level of excitation. We consider this to be an extremely important mechanistic finding and there is a great deal more to be investigated.

Opportunities exist to study this question using functional neuroanatomy with novel monoclonal antibodies that we have invented and with regulatory, physiological and pharmacological methods.

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2016 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

INCREASING LONGEVIT Y OF STENTS WITH USE OF HDL T R E AT M E N T The Immunobilogy Group identified that if topical HDL improves wound healing in patients with diabetic foot ulcers it will significantly improve their quality of life and also prevent the need for amputation, which occurs in one in 10 patients with diabetic foot with ulcers. If stents with HDL do improve biocompatibility it will decrease the need for additional invasive surgeries by increasing the longevity of the stent.

E X AMINING BLOOD PRESSURE CONTROL I N A C U T E LY V O L AT I L E S I T UAT I O N S .

The projects and collaborations in 2016 for the Vascular Immunology Group included major physiology projects examining the effects of different Blood Pressure (BP) medications on anaesthetics and blood pressure control in an acutely volatile situation. We have continued to examine the role of antibodies from the immune system and how they might control blood pressure in pregnancy; while also exploring the ways that standard and new preventative treatments (including aspirin and blood pressure control) used in pregnancy acutely affect the growth and development of the placenta.

N E W D R U G S W I L L T R E AT CANCER AND BLOOD CLOTS IN ONE BLOW Our Thrombosis Research Group have discovered that a protein known to cause cancer is also responsible for life-threatening blood clots, including deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which many people with cancer suffer from. The discovery, published in esteemed international science journal Nature Communications, allows drug makers to develop new cancer medications that inhibit this protein, fighting the cancer and the dangerous by-product, clots, in one powerful blow.

H E A R T S C R E E N C O U L D S AV E HUNDREDS FROM STROKE

S T I M U L AT I N G B L O O D V E S S E L GROW TH WITH TR AIL

Hundreds of Australians could be spared from stroke each year if people with an irregular heartbeat were identified early, an Australian-led review has shown.

Led by Professor Ben Freedman from our Heart Rhythm and Stroke Prevention Group, the HRI are championing a global push to introduce screening for the common heart condition ‘atrial fibrillation’ which triggers catastrophic strokes.

Writing in the prestigious medical journal ‘The Lancet’, cardiologist and heart authority Professor Freedman makes a case for routine testing of all older Australians to ensure those with the heart condition are identified and treated, ahead of a potentially catastrophic event.

The Vascular Complications Group’s recent publication demonstrating that TRAIL stimulates blood vessel growth in ischaemic PAD, highlights an exciting and novel therapeutic possibility in patients in which current treatments to restore blood flow have no benefit. In a follow-up study, the group compared TRAIL treatment with other known blood vessel stimulating factors, namely vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2). The group found that in vitro, TRAIL stimulated processes important for blood vessel growth, more effectively than VEGF and FGF-2. In contrast, in an in vivo model of invasion, the group found that FGF-2 was more effective at stimulating blood vessel development. Further studies are required to compare the efficacy of treatments in ischaemic vascular diseases. This work was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

CUT TING-EDGE T R E AT M E N T S F O R H E A R T VA LV E D I S E A S E A major problem of percutaneous heart valves (e.g. TAVR) is that there is a tendency for blood to leak around the side of the valve, a problem termed “paravalvular regurgitation” that can increase the risk of mortality after the procedure.

To treat paravalvular regurgitation, our Translational Research Group led by Associate Professor Martin Ng, have used cutting-edge polymer technology to develop a world-first highly conformable seal around the skirt outside the valve to eliminate leak, dramatically enhancing outcomes for patients receiving these valves. This technology has received international acclaim and was awarded a NSW Health Medical Device Fund grant. In 2016, A/Prof Ng commenced ‘First In Man’ trials of his novel sealing platform, working closely with industry.

UNCOVERING NEW PAT H WAYS I N V O LV I N G M Y E L O P E R OX I DA S E In 2016, the Inflammation Group uncovered new pathways involving myeloperoxidase that cause damage to cells in the artery and propagate inflammation, accelerating the development of fatty plaques in atherosclerosis. Postdoctoral scientist Dr Ben Raynor and PhD student Carmen Zhang examined how hypochlorous acid (H0CI), which is the disinfectant in household bleach, altered the function of cells called macrophages, which are the cells that initiate the development of fatty plaques in the arteries by taking up excessive amounts of lipid. Ben and Carmen showed that these cells undergo an unusual pathway in the presence of H0CI, whereby they spit out their DNA, forming a sticky net, which can trap other cells in the artery wall, and promote the development of blockages.

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2016 MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS

AU S S I E S P I O N E E R N E W APPROACH TO MEND BROKEN HEARTS

HEART SCREENING COULD S AV E H U N D R E D S F R O M STROKE SUFFERING

N E W D R U G S W I L L T R E AT CANCER AND BLOOD CLOTS IN ONE BLOW

A printer that builds beating 3D hearts in a laboratory could soon be saving the lives of heart attack patients if a pioneering Australian trial proves successful.

Hundreds of Australians could be spared from stroke each year if people with an irregular heart beat had their condition treated, an Australian-led review claims.

Cancer medication could soon also protect patients from deadly blood clots thanks to a breakthrough by Australian heart researchers.

The Heart Research Institute has bought a 3D bio-printer to engineer human heart tissue that can be stuck directly to a damaged organ following an attack.

The Heart Research Institute is leading a global push to introduce screening for the common heart condition atrial fibrillation which triggers catastrophic strokes. Writing in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, cardiologist and heart authority Dr Ben Freedman makes a case for routine testing of all older Australians to ensure all those with the heart condition are treated.

Scientists at the Heart Research Institute have discovered that a protein known to cause cancer is also responsible for lifethreatening blood clots, including deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which many people with cancer suffer from.

The Australia-first experiment could dramatically alter the cardiac treatment landscape, giving patients whose hearts are wounded by an attack a chance to fully recover and return to normal life.

This story ran on ABC News, 4 January 2016, as well as featuring on ABC’s The Conversation Hour

B R A I N D I S C O V E RY R A I S E S EPILEPSY DRUG HOPES

Researchers at the Heart Research Institute have discovered a brain chemical that protects people with epilepsy from deadly heart problems.

This research was published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 August 2016

‘ G O O D C H O L E S T E R O L’ H E L P S DIABETICS HEAL Good cholesterol could help protect people living with diabetes from heart disease complications and limb amputations that impact the lives of thousands of Australians each year, new research has revealed.

This work paves the way for exciting new protective drugs. The important new study reveals significant links between epilepsy, heart disorders and the immune system that could change the way the brain conditions are treated.

A newly-published study by the Heart Research Institute in Sydney has found for the first time that high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, which is believed to help guard against heart disease, may also stimulate new blood vessel growth in people with diabetes.

This ran as an exclusive story on 7 News, 22 May 2016.

This ran as an exclusive story on 9 News, 25 August 2016.

The discovery, published this week in esteemed international science journal Nature Communications, allows drug makers to develop new cancer medications that inhibit this protein, fighting the cancer and the dangerous by-product, clots, in one powerful blow.

This ran as an exclusive story on 9 News, 16 October 2016.

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APPLIED MATERIALS GROUP

Dr Steven Wise G ROUP LE AD E R

▪ OUR RESEARCHERS Dr Behnam Akhavan VISITING SCIENTIST Alex Chan PHD STUDENT Angela Cornelius HONOURS STUDENT Elysse Filipe PHD STUDENT Rose Gannaway NZ SUMMER STUDENT Janet Liang VISITING STUDENT Lisa Matthews SUMMER STUDENT Praveesuda Michael PHD STUDENT Miguel Santos PHD STUDENT Robert Simic HONOURS STUDENT Callum Stewart VISITING SCIENTIST Tania Tsatralis RESEARCH ASSISTANT

▪ OUR MISSION To develop the next generation of bioactive materials – materials that can bond to living tissues – and provide better treatment options for those with cardiovascular disease.

▪ A BOUT OUR RESE A RCH The Applied Materials Group works with exciting new classes of biomaterials including naturally derived proteins and polymers and the latest in synthetically produced plasma surfaces and products.

We aim to engineer and optimise these materials to be therapeutically useful in the treatment of vascular disease and more broadly in tissue repair.

PhD, BSc (Hons 1), University Medal

Dr Steven Wise has led HRI’s Applied Materials Group since 2015. His research is focused on developing improved implantable scaffolds and devices, specialising in vascular implants, their blood compatibility and interactions with vascular cells. Steven completed a PhD on elastin structure and function at the University of Sydney in 2006, studying with Professor Anthony Weiss. Over the past ten years, Dr Wise has made significant advancements in the development of new biomaterials and improved device surfaces for vascular applications, such as stents and grafts, specialising in their engineering, blood compatibility and interactions with vascular cells.

▪ I M PA C T The materials currently available for vascular repair are fundamentally incompatible with the tissues they seek to repair. Metal alloys like stainless steel, and the same plastics used in Goretex jackets and drinking straws are in wide use, relying on technology that has not evolved considerably for several decades. Discovery of new materials that could be used clinically would have a significant impact on the lives of patients.

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Applied Materials Group

▪ RESE A RCH ACHIE V EMENTS 2016 Silk-based Biomaterials for Vascular Repair Silk fibroin is a versatile natural polymer with remarkable mechanical properties.

Widely used as a suture material, purified silk is extremely well tolerated in the body, demonstrating only a limited inflammatory response. The biodegradability of silk can also be controlled during scaffold manufacture, making it a widely used biomaterial. Working closely with Dr Jelena Rnjak-Kovacina (UNSW), we have demonstrated that silk is a very promising building material for new synthetic blood vessels. During 2016, PhD student Elysse Filipe has generated elastic, strong, silk-based vascular conduits suitable for implantation in pre-clinical models of grafting. She has completed one of the most comprehensive lab-based graft performance studies in the field, delivering the preliminary results internationally at the American Heart Association Meeting in New Orleans, USA. Plasma-based Nanoparticles Plasma is the fourth state of matter, generated by using high energy to pull apart gases into their respective atoms. Plasma is abundant in our universe, present in stars and lighting for example. Our collaborator at The University of Sydney, Professor Marcela Bilek has designed unique plasma reactors which can harness these gas atoms for use in medical applications including for device surface coatings. PhD student Miguel Santos has made a serendipitous discovery while studying the plasma – a new class of bioactive nanoparticles. Nanoparticles are microscopic spheres so small that up to one billion can fit on the head of a pin.

They hold great promise in medicine as drug carriers, imaging agents (to locate sites for treatment), and therapeutics for a wide range of diseases. Nanoparticles can home to their targets better, which reduces the amount of a drug needed, greatly improving safety and efficiency. Working with fellow PhD student, Praveesuda Michael, we have demonstrated that our platform overcomes many of the fundamental limitations of current commercial nanoparticles. In 2016, the team has filed a patent to protect the invention and are now preparing to the share the exciting new technology with the research community.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Alex Chan, Elysse Filipe, Tania Tsatralis and Richard Tan.

“

What does it take to succeed as a scientist? To stay on the path and continue to make progress requires dedication and persistence – but above all, belief.

”

New Models of Vascular Grafting The most common medical intervention for very advanced cardiovascular disease is coronary bypass surgery. The vessels supplying blood to the heart are bypassed by conduits taken from elsewhere in the patient, including from the chest wall and the leg. There is no synthetic alternative that is clinically effective when these are unavailable. PhD student Alex Chan has developed a challenging new pre-clinical model to assess synthetic blood vessels that requires a high level of surgical skill.

Alex is now engineering new vessels for testing as well as using the model to study fundamental aspects of graft tolerance, including grafts that improve the recruitment of the body’s reparative cells and the effect of atherosclerosis on graft healing. Alex successfully presented the work at the Asia Pacific Meeting of TERMIS in Taipei, Taiwan.

New Classes of Bioactive Materials A core interest of our group is understanding the foreign body response to implanted materials. Poorly tolerated materials are walled off from the host tissue with a layer of dense scar-like material, leading to suboptimal implant performance. In collaboration with HRI Group Leader Martin Ng, PhD student Richard Tan has developed a new material which actively signals the body to control inflammatory response to implants.

These materials direct the behaviour of the body’s early response system, instructing it to constructively repair the area around the implant. The work has significant implications for all medical implants, and for the development of better materials for vascular repair.

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CARDIAC IMAGING GROUP

Professor Stuart Grieve G ROUP LE AD E R

Stuart wrote the 2015 Review and Strategy for Imaging at The Sydney University, which is the blueprint for all the current investment in imaging across the campus. To date this has lead to the establishment of Sydney Imaging, the procurement of $6 million of pre-clinical imaging equipment, and the contruction of Phase 1 of the $7 million Hybrid Imaging and Surgical Suite at Charles Perkins Centre (all led or co-lead by Stuart).

▪ OUR RESEARCHERS Dr Kathryn Broadhouse POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

Dr Fraser Callaghan POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST (HEAD POST-DOC)

Carmen Camarda ADMINISTRATION OFFICER, USYD

Dr Morgane Evin POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Judith Hager CASUAL INTERN Dr Keyvan Karimigalougahi CASUAL POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

Harish Ramachandran CASUAL RESEARCH ASSISTANT

DPhil (Oxon), MBBS (Hons), Bsc (Hons), FRACP, FCSANZ, FRANZCR

Professor Stuart Grieve is Group Leader of the Cardiac Imaging Group at HRI. Over 20 years of active research, Stuart has achieved a comprehensive understanding of MRI and its applications, from cellular biochemistry and physiology to MRI physics, programming and advanced image analysis techniques. Stuart completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford on the development of rapid imaging techniques in MRI and has since forged a career pushing the envelopes of imaging chronic diseases such as heart failure and depression, with a strong focus on translating these advances into current clinical practice in his role as the Chair of Radiology and Head of Imaging at Charles Perkins Centre at The University of Sydney.

▪ OUR MISSION By using quantitative imaging techniques to better understand cardiac disease, we hope to improve the accuracy and ease of diagnosis and use this knowledge to improve patient care.

▪ ABOUT OUR RESEARCH The Cardiac Imaging Group is a multimodality imaging lab with a focus on cardiovascular and neurovascular disorders. We are primarily interested in applying cutting edge imaging techniques such as MRI, but also work on conventional data such as ultrasound and CT images.

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Cardiac Imaging Group

We have three research goals: 1 Basic science – to develop new measures of cardiovascular physiology that more directly reflect disease processes 2 Disease mechanism – to use imaging to understand diseases such as heart failure that are currently difficult to evaluate at their early/reversible stages 3 To take promising biomarkers of early disease to the clinic, resulting in more accurate and earlier diagnosis and better targeting of therapy.

▪ I M PA C T While everyone acknowledges that imaging is one of the top modalities that will impact on clinical care and research over the coming decades, the ability to harness and translate new developments to the clinic lags well behind technical advances.

Our group aims to be one of the key forces to bridging this gap in capability by combining a highly technical skill base with a highly scientific mechanism-based approach.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Kathryn Broadhouse and Fraser Callaghan.

▪ PROJECTS Aortic Dilatation Project (funded by NHMRC grant APP) Our aortic dilatation project which aims to replace outmoded and imprecise diameter measures of the aorta with non-invasive MRI biomarkers of the haemodynamic

▪ ACHIEVEMENTS

abnormalities that fundamentally drive aortic dilatation, dissection and aneurysm formation.

Key aspects of this include: • Conception, procurement and construction of the hybrid suite at Charles Perkins Centre which will enable the large animal experiments needed for our aortic and heart failure projects • Development of the most advanced MRI-compatible flow phantom available, which will enable us to perform highly detailed ex vivo imaging and direct measurements of flow using 3D-printed models of vessels, heart chambers and other structures • Completion of a comprehensive integrated system to efficiently store and process large volumes of imaging data – making large scale, multi-site projects feasible.

The impact of this work is high, potentially transforming decision-making algorithms across cardiology and cardiac surgery.

Our other projects for 2016 included: 1 Right Heart Failure Project (subject of submitted NHMRC grant for 2018) 2 Left Heart Failure Project (major longterm goal, NHMRC grant APP) 3 Mild traumatic brain injury (funded NHMRC grant APP) 4 Surgical brain injury (subject of submitted NHMRC grant for 2018) 5 Impact of chronic diseases on brain function (CHRONIC study).

Perhaps the most important achievements of the group over the last year has been the capacity building efforts in terms of data collection, data processing and team recruitment and development.

“

What do you think it takes to succeed as a scientist?

A great scientist has a preservation of curiosity and really enjoy learning. You must also have a focus on making a real difference to patient care.

”

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CARDIOMETABOLIC DISEASE GROUP

Dr John O’Sullivan G ROUP LE AD E R

Bsc BE (Hons), PhD

Dr John O’Sullivan joined the HRI in 2016 as Cardiometabolic Disease Group Leader. John joins the HRI from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital where he was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Clinical Observer. John received his medical degree from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and his PhD from University College Cork, in Ireland. He undertook internal medicine and cardiology training in Ireland. John’s research focusses on the cardiovascular effects of obesity-driven metabolic diseases, which together are the greatest health challenges in the modern era.

Combining genomic and metabolomic profiling in carefully-phenotyped patient cohorts, he has discovered several novel markers, effectors, and predictors of disease. Using animal and cellular models of disease, he has revealed the functional roles of these metabolites.

▪ OUR RESEARCHERS Natalie Joe NZ SUMMER STUDENT

▪ AB O U T OU R RES E A RC H

Yen Chin Koay VISITING STUDENT Bailey McIntosh NZ SUMMER STUDENT

consequences of the obesity epidemic.

▪ OUR MISSION To discover better diagnostic markers, predictors, and therapies for cardiometabolic disease.

We aim to tackle the cardiovascular Obesity-driven metabolic disease such as insulin resistance, diabetes, fatty liver disease, hyperlipidaemia, and hypertension are the major drivers of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in the modern era. This trend is continuing despite the best primary prevention efforts. These complex diseases are the consequence of gene-environment interactions, and to truly understand the various levels of dysregulation, both genomic data and environmental data must be captured. We probe carefully-phenotyped patient cohorts using genome scanning and metabolomic

profiling to discover novel disease markers that may have clinical utility, e.g., by providing better diagnostic markers of disease, and allowing earlier intervention by predicting future disease. Furthermore, integration of genetic and metabolomic data allows delineation of disease pathways, which we then study in animal and cell models of disease. This allows us to determine diseasespecific functional regulation, and potential for therapeutic intervention.

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Cardiometabolic Disease Group

“

What do you think it takes to succeed as a scientist?

A passion for discovery and understanding.

”

▪ I MPACT

▪ PLANNED RESEARCH PROJECTS

associated, possibly protective, and the other positively associated, likely damaging.

Obesity-related diseases are the major health challenges of our generation. Obesity-

A new therapy for fatty liver and

We are currently undertaking the necessary

driven type 2 diabetes has dramatically

diabetes

steps to identify these novel lipids that may

increased in prevalence in Australia and

We recently discovered a new pathway

reveal alternative therapeutic strategies in

other Western countries in the last few

that links liver fat to type 2 diabetes and

coronary artery disease.

decades. Alarmingly, in the last decade alone,

independently predicted future diabetes

highly-populous developing countries like

12 years ahead of diagnosis in two separate

Discovering new disease pathways

India and China have seen type 2 diabetes

human cohorts. However, it is unknown if

in young people at risk of

reach epidemic proportions. In fact, the WHO

this new pathway can be used to treat

cardiometabolic disease

described the increase of type 2 diabetes

fatty liver disease and/or diabetes. We have

We will use whole genome scanning and

in China as “explosive”, where 114 million

organised the necessary expertise, transgenic

non-targeted metabolomic profiling for

people have type 2 diabetes and 500 million

models, and human cohorts to probe this

novel discovery in young people with a

people (almost 50% of all adults) have pre-

pathway more thoroughly to assess its

high-risk factor burden but without overt

diabetes. Clearly, there is an urgent global

therapeutic potential.

cardiometabolic disease. Whole genome scanning is now affordable and tractable.

need for better ways to detect and treat type 2 diabetes. One of the cornerstones

Novel disease pathways in coronary

Non-targeted metabolomic profiling

of treatment of type 2 diabetes is early

artery disease

(thousands of metabolites) captures a far

intervention. In this context, our discovery

Up to 30 per cent of patients who present

greater portion of the human genome than

of a new molecule that independently

with myocardial infarction do not have

targeted metabolomic profiling (hundreds of

predicts diabetes 12 years before diagnosis

traditional risk factors. Mirroring this

metabolites). I have previously successfully

has huge clinical potential to facilitate

observation, two-thirds of the genomic loci

used this strategy, one of the few worldwide

intervention well before overt onset of

associated with coronary artery disease

to do so, and will now apply this approach

diabetes and its attendant complications

are not associated with traditional risk

to younger people at risk of cardiometabolic

such as cardiovascular disease. Furthermore,

factors. Using a novel lipidomic profiling

disease. This has enormous clinical utility:

by detailing the entire pathway controlling

platform, we have recently identified two

if we can successfully capture new disease

levels of this molecule, we can now

novel non-lipoprotein lipids associated

markers at a much earlier age, we can

determine if this pathway can treat

with coronary artery disease in patients

truly alter the course of disease, thereby

type 2 diabetes.

without risk factors. One of these is inversely

preventing disease onset.

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CARDIOVASCULAR MEDICAL DEVICES GROUP

Dr Anna Waterhouse G ROUP LE AD E R

▪ OUR RESEARCHERS Kevin Choi NZ SUMMER STUDENT Sally Gao RESEARCH ASSISTANT Georgia Heffernan NZ SUMMER STUDENT ▪ OUR MISSION To understand the interactions of medical devices with patients’ blood, proteins and cells with a view to developing more sophisticated and compatible materials for medical devices.

▪ ABOUT OUR RESEARCH Research in the Cardiovascular Medical Devices Group focuses on how medical devices – such as artificial hearts, stents and bypass machines – interact with the body.

This team applies cutting-edge bioengineering tools to develop new methodologies to assess and understand the interplay of events at the biointerface, where the devices interact with the patient, and manipulate this interplay to improve medical device function, create novel medical devices and diagnostics and both drug and non-drug based avenues for therapies.

▪ I M PA C T Despite the widespread use of medical devices in cardiovascular medicine, including artificial hearts, vascular stents, vascular grafts, heart valves, pacemakers, catheters and cardiopulmonary bypass circuits, many side effects occur due to the materials used to make these devices, such as blood

PhD, BSc (Hons 1)

Dr Anna Waterhouse joined the HRI in 2016 as Group Leader of the Cardiovascular Medical Devices Group. Anna returns to the HRI from Harvard University where she was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Scientist at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering with Prof.

Don Ingber. Anna received her PhD from the University of Sydney and HRI on biomimetic coronary stent coatings to treat coronary artery disease under the supervision of Prof. Tony Weiss, A/Prof. Ng and Prof. Bilek. Her research combines cardiovascular device engineering and biological interactions at material interfaces, aiming to understand how devices fail in order to create materials that interact with the body in a more biological way, mimicking the body’s own tissue.

clots (thrombosis) and microbe adhesion (biofouling). Thrombosis of medical devices is currently managed with medication that can cause additional complications, such as bleeding from antiplatelet or anticoagulant drugs.

Additionally, biofouling is treated with antibiotics, however, antibiotics can’t always penetrate the biofilm and the overuse of antibiotics is leading to antibiotic resistant pathogens. Increased understanding of biointerface interactions and methodology to assess materials could lead to the development of new more compatible materials and devices to reduce the use of drugs and risks for patients.

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Cardiovascular Medical Devices Group

▪ PL A NNED RESE A RCH PROJECTS Biointerfaces Understanding the interactions of medical devices with patients’ blood, proteins and cells will allow the development of more sophisticated and compatible materials for medical devices for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease. To achieve these goals we utilise cutting edge bioengineering tools to develop new methodologies to assess and understand the interplay of events at the biointerface. This includes immobilising proteins or creating anti-adhesive coatings and investigating the

“

biological response at the interface of the materials using advanced microscopy and

What do you think it takes to succeed as a scientist? To succeed as a scientist it takes hard work, dedication and a curious mind.

”

surface analysis tools.

Biomimetic model systems Advances in material fabrication techniques and 3D-printing in micro and nanotechnology have revolutionised bioengineering, allowing high precision manipulation of materials for modelling medical systems and devices in the lab. Using these strategies, biomimetic in vitro model systems can be generated to recreate physiological conditions to evaluate medical device materials, geometries and drugs. Device failure mechanisms and how different disease states contribute to them can be investigated with the aim of developing new treatments or preventative therapies.

Bioengineering smart materials Medical device thrombosis and biofouling leading to sepsis cause significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Furthermore, there is an urgent need to reduce the complications that arise from drugs designed to combat these issues, such as anticoagulants that cause bleeding and the overuse of antibiotics that result in antibiotic resistant pathogens. Using bioengineering strategies, increasingly sophisticated materials can be constructed. Combining physical, chemical and biological surface modification methods, medical devices can be manipulated to interact with, repel or adhere proteins or cells to improve medical device function, create novel diagnostics and medical devices and both drug and non-drug based avenues for therapies.

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CELL THERAPEUTICS GROUP

G ROUP LE AD E R

▪ OUR RESEARCHERS Anirudh Balachandar VISITING STUDENT Jennifer Barraclough PHD STUDENT Dr Kristen Bubb VISITING SCIENTIST Zoe Clayton PHD STUDENT Rodney Henriquez RESEARCH ASSISTANT Jack Hywood PHD STUDENT Alex Patton PHD STUDENT Sara Sadeghipour POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Sonia Sawant SUMMER STUDENT Bradley Tucker VISITING STUDENT

Associate Professor Sanjay Patel MBBS (HONS 1), PhD, FRACP, FCSANZ

Associate Professor Sanjay Patel is a Staff Interventional Cardiologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Group Leader at the Heart Research Institute and Senior Lecturer at the Sydney Medical School.

His research encompasses expertise in interventional/ clinical cardiology, animal models of atherosclerosis and basic vascular biology.

His high research output is reflected in the more than 30 publications in highlighting ranked journals and over 30 presentations at international cardiovascular meetings.

▪ OUR MISSION To reduce death and disability associated with heart and lower limb arterial disease by reducing atherosclerotic plaque build-up.

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“

Cell Therapeutics Group

What do you think it takes to succeed as a scientist? To succeed as a scientist you need Creativity. Honesty. Humility.

▪ ABOUT OUR RESEARCH Our mission is to develop novel therapies to target against atherosclerosis (arterial blockages) and its consequences – heart attack and stroke. Our treatment mission is to bypass arterial blockages by stimulating

”

with marked anti-inflammatory and antiatheroscleroitc properites, in patients with coronary disease. And, in collaboration with researchers at the Kolling I nstitute, we are also studying novel drugs to boost new blood vessel formation.

new blood vessel growth, to restore blood flow to affected regions. Our work is performed in collaboration with the Clinical, Translational, Inflammation and

▪ RESEARCH FUNDING 1 Ramaciotti Health Investment Grant 2 NSW Health EMC Fellowship

Immunobiology Groups within the HRI, drawing upon their expertise in these areas of research.

▪ I M PA C T Our research has the potential to reduce death and disability caused by heart and lower limb arterial disease by reducing atherosclerotic plaque build-up in the blood vessels. Our work also has the potential to reduce symptoms associated with insufficient blood supply to the heart and legs by stimulating the growth of new blood vessels in patients with arterial blockages.

▪ GROUP PROJECTS 2016 Anti-inflammatory and anti-atherosclerotic effects of colchicine – In detail, we described for the first time the ability of colchicine to suppress the activity of inflammatory cells (monocytes) that play a key role in atherosclerosis. We also have been studying the effects of colchicine directly on atherosclerotic plaque in humans and mice.

Stem cells and angiogenesis – Our group continues to study the ability of a novel stem cell type (induced pluripotent stem cell or iPSC) to boost new blood vessel growth in limbs with insufficient blood flow, as well as aid in wound healing, through collaboration with the Biomaterials Group. Excitingly, our groups are working together to design a scaffold on which these stem cells could be delivered to tissue to increase their longevity.

Through collaboration with the Vascular Complications Group, we continue to study potential therapies to boost TRAIL, mediator

Dr Sara Sadeghipour.

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CLINICAL RESEARCH GROUP

Professor David Celermajer G ROUP LE AD E R

AO, PhD, MBBS, MSc (Oxon), DSc, FAHA, FRACP, FAA

Professor David Celermajer has been Clinical Research Group Leader at the HRI since 1994 and was appointed to the position of Clinical Director in 2003. He is a Cardiologist and the Director of Echocardiography at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and is Scandrett Professor of Cardiology at the University of Sydney. In 2014, he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for services as a researcher and clinician in the field of cardiovascular disease. David’s research areas of expertise include adult congenital heart disease, pulmonary hypertension, clinical cardiology and early origins of atherosclerosis.

▪ O U R RESEARCHER S Professor David Celermajer Subha Nasir Ahmad RESEARCH ASSISTANT Dr Julian Ayer VISITING SCIENTIST Amy Coy RESEARCH ASSISTANT Jordan Fulcher PHD STUDENT (VISITING) Vivian Kienzle SENIOR RESEARCH ASSISTANT Dr Kelly Stanton PHD STUDENT Laura Wylie CARDIAC SONOGRAPHER ▪ O U R MI SS I ON To detect cardiac and vascular disease early, to allow treatments to be given at an optimal stage to prevent serious late consequences of disease.

▪ AB O U T O U R RES E A RC H The Clinical Research Group’s aim is to detect heart and blood vessel problems at a stage when they are potentially reversible and then design interventions to try to treat any abnormalities found. Our main focus for prevention of atherosclerosis is for children and young adults with risk factors for early heart disease, especially those who are obese, those exposed to passive smoke in the home, those who smoke themselves or those with high levels of cholesterol. We are also focussing on subjects with pre-diabetes or diabetes and babies who are born small at full term.

We aim to detect and prevent complications from three important types of serious heart disease: • Atherosclerosis, the main cause of heart attack and stroke, with narrowing of the main blood vessels in the body • Pulmonary vascular disease, which is narrowing of the main blood vessels to the lungs which can lead to overload of the right side of the heart • Congenital heart disease, where there are now increasing numbers of adults surviving with inborn heart problems that require extensive care and treatment.

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Clinical Research Group

▪ 2016 RES EARC H H IG H L IG H TS A N D ACHI EVEMENTS In the Clinical Research Group, we do a lot of direct patient research, on children and young adults with a variety of cardiac and vascular disorders.

A particularly exciting project in 2016 was a study of Army recruits, carefully examined before basic training, after 16 weeks exercise and then again (for half the group) after another 16 weeks of further advanced infantry-related exercise. We measured, fitness, fatness, heart function, metabolic health and the structure and function of all kinds of cholesterol, before, during and after exercise.

We also worked on the heart health of children aged 14 years who had been followed from birth, to analyse the determinants of heart health in adolescents.

We also carried out a number of important studies in young adults with congenital heart disease, aiming to understand their disease patterns and improve their patterns of care and long term outcomes.

Our group published a large number of manuscripts in major international journals, describing our results. We obtained a NHMRC Translational Centres Grant for the study of Chest Pain evaluation in Emergency Departments across NSW.

“

To succeed as a scientist, passion and commitment are the necessary prerequisites, as one needs to feel that the joy of discovery outweighs the hurdles involved.

A good measure of patience is helpful. Most important of all is the ability to think laterally if surprised by an unexpected result – many of the best discoveries are serendipitous!

” Jun Chien Hung.

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FREE RADICAL GROUP

Dr David Pattison G ROUP LE AD E R

▪ O UR RES EARCHER S Dr Luke Carroll POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Dr Georg Degendorfer POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

Nicholas Gad VISITING PHD STUDENT Kelly Gardiner PHD STUDENT Dr Carmine Gentile MARCUS BLACKMORE RESEARCH FELLOW

Luke Hall PHD STUDENT Dr Andrzej Januszewski VISITING SCIENTIST Maryam Karimi PHD STUDENT Cassidy Moeke PHD STUDENT

▪ O U R M ISS I O N Our aim is to understand how free radicals and oxidants can modify the structure and function of the artery wall by focusing on oxidants generated in the artery wall during inflammation.

DPhil, BSc, MRSC

Dr David Pattison leads the Free Radical Group and holds an honorary Senior Research Fellow position at the University of Sydney Medical School. He uses an analytical chemical approach to gain detailed insight into the reactions of oxidants that are implicated in the development and progression of atherosclerosis and other inflammatory diseases. David completed his BSc and DPhil degrees at the University of York, England, and held postdoctoral positions at University College London and the University of Sydney.

▪ A B O U T O U R RES E A RC H The research undertaken by the Free Radical Group is primarily focussed on understanding the reactions of free radicals and other oxidants produced during inflammation. Free radicals are highly reactive species that are generated both as by-products of normal cellular metabolism and also deliberately to kill invading micro-organisms (e.g., bacteria) to keep us healthy. During periods of chronic inflammation the production of oxidants can become excessive and uncontrolled, resulting in damage to the body, which can contribute to diseases such as atherosclerosis.

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FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Fr e e R a d i c a l G r o u p

Kelly Gardiner, Dr David Pattison and Dr Luke Carroll.

▪ I MPACT Understanding the biochemistry of the free radicals and oxidants that cause damage to the artery wall during atherosclerosis provides us with insight into how and why the disease develops and progresses. This detailed knowledge allows us to strategically develop new approaches that we believe should reduce, or even prevent, the amount of arterial damage caused by these oxidants.

▪ P R O J ECTS 1 Characterisation of Disulfide Bond Oxidation in Peptides and Proteins by Myeloperoxidase-Derived Oxidants 2 Characterising the Reactions of Diselenides with Reactive Oxidants Generated during Chronic Inflammation 3 Assessing the Potential of Thiocyanate Ions to Protect Against Atherosclerosis and Myocardial Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury 4 Investigation into the Use of Tryptophan Crosslinks as Biomarkers of Radical Damage to Peptides and Proteins 5 Probing the Effect of the Local Protein Environment on Singlet Oxygen-Mediated Damage to Tryptophan Residues 6 Examining the Biological Effects of Myeloperoxidase-Derived Oxidants on Extracellular Matrix Proteins 7 Investigating the Role of MyeloperoxidaseDerived Oxidants on Pyruvate Kinase Function and the Implications in Atherosclerosis 8 Bioprinting of Human Cardiac Patches for Heart Regeneration.

▪ AC H I E V E M E N TS 1 Secured funding for the installation of a new state-of-the-art gas chromatography/ mass spectrometer (GC/MS) instrument at the Institute 2 Dr Carmine Gentile secured funding for a 3D-Bioprinter and has featured in interviews on the ABC and in social and print media following its installation 3 Dr Carmine Gentile spent four months as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School 4 Several of our PhD students have graduated or submitted their theses 5 We had a strong group presence at major local and international conferences in our research field: – Society for Redox Biology and Medicine 2016, San Francisco – Society for Free Radical Research Australasia 2016, Gold Coast

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HEART RHYTHM AND STROKE PREVENTION GROUP

Professor Ben Freedman G ROUP LE AD E R

▪ O UR RESEARCHER S Jialin Li MN Nicole Lowres BPHTY Jessica Orchard BEC/LLB MPH

▪ O U R M ISS I O N If we could detect silent Atrial Fibrillation in the population and treat it, we could prevent many strokes.

▪ AB O U T OU R RES E A RC H The Heart Rhythm and Stroke Prevention Group was brought to the HRI in 2016 when Professor Freedman joined the HRI as Deputy Director (Research Strategy). The research is clinical and focuses on finding novel ways to implement strategies to reduce stroke by detecting atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation or AF is the most common abnormal heart rhythm – it has been estimated that if a person reaches the age of 40, there is a 1 in 4 lifetime risk of developing AF. AF disturbs the flow of

OAM, MBBS, PhD, FRACP FCSANZ, FACC, FESC, FAHA

Professor Ben Freedman has has re-joined us as Deputy Director Research Strategy, Heart Research Institute/Charles Perkins Centre and Group Leader of the Heart Rhythm and Stroke Prevention Group. Ben’s research interests now focus on screening for atrial fibrillation (AF) to prevent stroke: indeed his group’s work on screening was nominated as a finalist in the Australian Innovation award in 2013. With five others, he formed the AF-SCREEN International Collaboration which now has over 130 members from 33 countries, including many of the foremost names in AF research. In 2011 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for service to medicine as a clinician, educator and researcher.

blood inside the heart, leading to formation of clots, which break off and usually travel to the brain, blocking brain arteries and causing severe strokes. AF is responsible for 1/3 of all strokes, which are largely preventable by anticoagulant medications, which stop the clots from forming inside the heart in AF. Unfortunately, AF is frequently silent, especially in older people who are at greater risk of stroke, and the first sign of AF is a severe stroke.

Our group’s main activities are to work out how best to screen for AF at scale, to prevent as many strokes as possible. We started off doing this in pharmacies, showing we could detect silent and unrecognised AF in 15

035

H e a r t R h y t h m a n d St r o k e P r e v e n t i o n G r o u p

“

What do you think it takes to succeed as a scientist?

An understanding of the problem leading into an insight into the solution, accompanied by determination and persistence.

”

out 1,000 people screened. We used a novel technology – a miniature ECG machine which sticks to the back of a smartphone. Initially, this needed to be checked by a cardiologist, but now the diagnosis can be made in 30 seconds. We also did some pilot studies in general practice showing that the practice nurses were ideally placed to screen older patients coming to see the doctor.

▪ I MPACT If screening for AF could be implemented widely in those aged 65 or older, and this could be coupled with greater prescription of anticoagulant therapy as advised in guidelines, then many strokes could be avoided, not only in Australia but globally.

▪ PROJECTS • Study in general practice using smartphone ECG and an electronic decision support tool (current) • Study of recurrence of postoperative AF after non-cardiac surgery in Concord Hospital, and now in Royal Perth Hospital and Gosford Hospital (current) • Collaboration with the Poche Centre to screen for AF in Aboriginal Australians in remote and rural NSW, extending to NT and WA

• C ollaboration with researchers in Royal Melbourne Hospital to detect AF post stroke in Australia, Hong Kong and China • Collaboration with researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong to screen for AF in cardiac clinics, general practice and the community (over 15,000 people screened) • Collaboration with researchers in Shanghai to screen for AF in community centres • Collaboration with Pharmacists in London to screen for AF in pharmacies and test pathways for referral for treatment • Collaboration with doctors in Kaiser Permanente San Diego to screen in managed care clinics

• Joint symposium of the American Heart Association (AHA) with AFSCREEN at the scientific sessions of AHA in New Orleans with Prof Freedman presenting • Dr Lowres presented the results for a Systematic review of monitoring for recurrence of Post-operative AF at the World Cardiology Conference, Mexico, 2016.

• Jessica Orchard presented in young investigator award session at the European Congress on eCardiology in Health Berlin, and a publication in European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, on screening during fluvax in general practice • Prof Freedman won the award for “Outstanding individual who has

▪ AC H IE V E M E N TS • First Consensus conference of AFSCREEN International Collaboration, founded by Prof Freedman with 5 others to promote research discussion and awareness of the global potential for screening for AF to prevent stroke • Publication of a review in Lancet on stroke prevention in AF with accompanying editorial

contributed to arrhythmia services 2016”. Awarded by the global patient group Arrhythmia Alliance • Dr Lowres won a University of Sydney Peter Bancroft prize for her doctoral thesis • Dr Lowres awarded both a National Heart Foundation early career postdoctoral fellowship and a NSW ECR Health Fellowship

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HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Professor Paul Pilowsky G ROUP LE AD E R

▪ O UR RESEARCHER S Dr Stephen Abbott POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Vinodan Anandaselvakumar MASTER STUDENT Amol Bhandare PHD STUDENT (VISITING) Dr Lei Cao VISITING SCIENTIST Myfanwy Cohen PHD STUDENT Dong Hoon Choi (Kevin) NZ SUMMER STUDENT Yesubet Dereje VISITING STUDENT Son Dinh VISITING STUDENT Briony Durand MASTER STUDENT Dr Melissa Farnham POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Jasmine Fyfe VISITING STUDENT Emily Grey VISITING STUDENT Zohra Kakall PHD STUDENT SeungJae Kim PHD STUDENT Dr Polina Nedoboy POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Angus Palfreeman HONOURS STUDENT Seren Ucak MASTER STUDENT

▪ O U R M ISS I O N Our group aims to determine how the central nervous system manages long-term control of blood pressure and how the brain copes when these systems go awry. More recently, we have begun to address the role of inflammatory systems and ischaemic systems in the brain in relationship to blood pressure control.

▪ AB O U T OU R RES E A RC H The High Blood Pressure Research Group addresses all aspects of the way that the brain controls blood flow to different parts of the circulation. Normally, this flow is exquisitely regulated so that every part of the body gets enough blood to satisfy its needs, while ensuring that organs such as the brain always receive adequate oxygenation.

PhD, BMedSc (Hons), BMBS, FAHA

Professor Paul Pilowsky is the leader and founder of the High Blood Pressure Group at HRI and a Professor in the Department of Physiology at the University of Sydney.

He also holds an Honorary appointment at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in the Department of Cardiology.

Paul’s research is concerned with diseases caused by abnormal functioning of brain networks that control airways, breathing and blood pressure.

He is supported with funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, of which he is a Principal Research Fellow.

▪ I M PACT High blood pressure is the scourge of modern civilisation. It causes heart attack, blindness, kidney disease, stroke and early death. Our work is aimed at learning how high blood pressure is caused so that new steps can be developed to prevent it.

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High Blood Pressure Group

“

Success in science is a combination of many factors, including perseverance, persistence, and occasional moments of insight that together lead to inspiration and clarity.

”

Zohra Kakall.

▪ PROJECTS We have published eight significant Journal articles in 2016 (start of 2017).

These projects focussed on the role of the peptide PACAP in high blood pressure, the role of inflammatory cells in high blood pressure, and the effect of carbohydrate ingestion in healthy older women. The effect of the peptide orexin was also studied, as was the effect of brain inflammation during epilepsy on sympathetic nerve activity – which can lead to fatal heart arrhythmia. We also developed new antibodies to proteins in the brain that are activated during excitation, allowing us to demonstrate where in the brainstem the excitatory parts of the brainstem are located.

▪ AC H I E V E M E N TS 1 Seizure leads to sympathoexcitation and brain inflammatory cells are protective 2 The brain neurons that regulate blood pressure have a very specific side to middle relationship 3 Brain immune cells respond to changes in blood pressure 4 Women and men respond differently to consumption of carbohydrates 5 The peptide orexin causes a prolonged increase in sympathetic activity and enhances the response to low oxygen 6 Immune cells in the spinal cord play a role in the sympathoexcitatory and proarrhythmogenic response chronic epilepsy

▪ T E A M AC H I E V E M E N TS Stephen Abbott and Melissa Farnham both presented ‘Future Leader Presentations’ at HRI symposium. Amol Bhandare and Komal Kapoor completed their PhD studies with Prof PM Pilowsky.

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IMMUNOBIOLOGY GROUP

Dr Christina Bursill G ROUP LE AD E R

“

What does it take to succeed as a researcher?

A thick skin, self belief and hard work.

”

PhD, BSc (Hons 1)

Dr Christina Bursill was Immunobiology Group Leader at HRI since 2011, having worked at the institute since 2007. Her research focuses on uncovering ways to stimulate atherosclerotic plaque regression, increase new blood vessel growth in diabetics and increase stent ‘biocompatibility’. She holds a PhD in lipid metabolism from the University of Adelaide, and completed post-doctoral research at Oxford University, at the Wellcome Trust Centre of Human Genetics, which investigated the importance of chemokines in atherosclerosis.

▪ OUR RESEARCHERS Dr Christina Bursill VISITING SCIENTIST Carla Cannizzo HONOURS STUDENT Samuel Hourigan HONOURS STUDENT Dhanya Ravindran PHD STUDENT Dr Anisyah Ridiandries POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

Dr Joanne Tan VISITING SCIENTIST Laura Vanags RESEARCH ASSISTANT

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Immunobiology Group

▪ AB O U T O U R RES E A RC H The Immunobiology Group focuses on exploring the role of chemokines, small inflammatory proteins, in vascular complications associated with heart disease.

We also look at novel ways to use highdensity lipoproteins (HDL). We have shown that HDL promotes angiogenesis (new blood vessel formation) in diabetics, which leads to improved wound healing. We have also used HDL to improve stent biocompatibility.

The Immunobiology Group also has a strong interest in gene transfer technology, which involves using viruses to increase the levels of a protein of interest. We have developed a number of different viral strategies to promote the levels of HDL and broad spectrum inhibitors of chemokines.

▪ OUR MISSION • To determine if HDL can improve wound healing in diabetic patients • To elucidate the mechanisms by which HDL increases angiogenesis, including the role of key miRNAs • E xplore covalent attachment of HDL to a stent increases its biocompatibility

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

▪ IM PACT If topical HDL improves wound healing in patients with diabetic foot ulcers it will significantly improve their quality of life and also prevent the need for amputation, which occurs in one in 10 patients. If stents with HDL do improve biocompatibility it will decrease the need for additional invasive surgeries by increasing the longevity of the stent.

Anisyah Ridiandries, Laura Vanags, Dhanya Ravindran and Dr Joanne Tan.

▪ PRO J ECTS • The role of the CC-chemokine class in pathological versus physiological angiogenesis • The effect of a chemokine inhibitor “M3” in atherosclerosis • HDL increases the key mechanisms associated with improved stent biocompatibilty • Regulation of angiogenesis by miRNAs • The role of HDL in diabetes-impaired angiogenesis and wound healing • The importance of VEGFR2 in HDL-induced angiogenesis ▪ AC H I E V E M E N TS • Our work looking at HDL in diabetes was published in “Diabetes” journal • Our work on the role of the CC-chemokines in angiogenesis was published in “FASEB Journal” • Dr Christina Bursill received the National Heart Foundation Lin Huddleston Fellowship • Joanne Tan, a senior postdoc in the group, received funding from Diabetes Australia.

• Two of our PhD students Laura Vanags and Anisyah Ridiandries were awarded their PhDs.

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INFLAMMATION GROUP

G ROUP LE AD E R

Associate Professor Clare Hawkins DPhil, BSc (Hons), CChem MRSC

Associate Professor Clare Hawkins is the HRI Scientific Director, leader of the Inflammation Group at HRI, and a Principal Research Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. She joined the Heart Research Institute in 1997 as a postdoctoral scientist in the Free Radical Group after completing her PhD at the University of York, England.

Clare holds a prestigious Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and her research is focused on understanding how chemical oxidants produced during chronic inflammation disrupt cellular function and contribute to the disease atherosclerosis.

▪ OUR RESEARCHERS

▪ OUR MISSION

Adrian Abdo PHD STUDENT

Our focus is to understand how reactive

Mathew Agnew SUMMER STUDENT

chemicals called oxidants, produced

Dr Andrew Bulmer VISITING SCIENTIST

by the body during inflammation, can

Dr Bronwyn Brown POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

affect the function of blood vessels,

Marcus Dombret VISITING STUDENT

to better understand the changes that

Stanley Du Preez VISITING STUDENT

occur in the arteries leading to the

Sara Evelina Henriksson VISITING STUDENT

build-up of fat that characterise the

Dr Daniel Lim VISITING SCIENTIST

early stages of atherosclerosis.

Dr Dominic Love POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Jessica Macer-Wright PHD STUDENT

▪ A B O U T O U R RES E A RC H

Leila Reyes PHD STUDENT

Our research aims to determine how

Mariyam Nizha SUMMER STUDENT

reactive chemicals called oxidants,

Owen Tang VISITING STUDENT

which are produced by the body during

Vickie Tang PHD STUDENT

inflammation, affect the function of

Yunjia Zhang PHD STUDENT

blood vessels. Oxidants are formed by

Dr David Van Reyk VISITING SCIENTIST

our immune system to help us to fight

041

Inflammation Group

infections, as they rapidly kill bacteria and viruses. However, during the development of atherosclerosis, chronic inflammation leads to excessive and misplaced oxidant formation - this damages the surrounding cells and accelerates the development of disease. Our other key aims are to develop new approaches to repair the damaged artery cells and also design novel therapeutic agents to prevent these damaging reactions from occurring.

▪ I MPACT Our work provides detailed information about the key pathways responsible for the changes in blood vessel function seen early in lesion development in atherosclerosis. This information is vital for the design of new drugs to prevent the build-up of fat in the arteries, which is a major cause of heart disease.

▪ 2 016 PROJECTS Our projects focus on oxidants produced in the blood vessels by an enzyme called myeloperoxidase, which is from white blood cells. During the development of atherosclerosis, chronic inflammation leads to the recruitment of high numbers of white blood cells to the artery wall, which release myeloperoxidase in an uncontrolled manner.

This plays a key role in disease development, as blood levels of this enzyme predict both the risk of individuals developing atherosclerosis and the outcome of patients with chest pain or who have had a heart attack. Our projects examine 1) how the oxidants themselves alter the function of different types of blood vessel and heart cells, 2) how compounds formed by reaction of oxidants with other biological materials in the body affect cellular function and 3) new approaches to repair or reverse these damaging reactions.

▪ ACHI EVEMEN TS In 2016, we uncovered new pathways involving myeloperoxidase oxidants that cause damage to cells in the artery and propagate inflammation, accelerating the development of fatty plaques in atherosclerosis. Postdoctoral scientist Dr Ben Rayner and PhD student Carmen Zhang examined how hypochlorous acid (HOCl), which is the disinfectant in household bleach, altered the function of cells called macrophages, which are the cells that initiate the development of fatty plaques in the arteries by taking up excessive amounts of lipid. Ben and Carmen showed that these

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Associate Professor Clare Hawkins and Dr Bronwyn Brown.

cells undergo an unusual pathway in the presence of HOCl, whereby they spit out their DNA, forming a sticky net, which can trap other cells in the artery wall, and promote the development of blockages.

Carmen has identified other compounds in addition to HOCl that can trigger this process and is currently looking at ways to prevent DNA release, as a potential therapy to slow lesion formation.

We have continued our studies with a related chemical called hypothiocyanous acid (HOSCN), which is formed in higher amounts in the blood vessels from smokers, who are more likely to develop atherosclerosis and die of a heart attack. Dominic Love showed that HOSCN influences the energy producing pathways in different types of cells in the artery wall. In high amounts, this oxidant targets cells for death in a manner that could destabilise lesions in the artery wall, which could ultimately contribute to a heart attack.

However, in lower amounts, HOSCN triggers adaptive responses in cells that allows them to recover from stress. Current studies are focusing on whether these pathways can be manipulated to enable cells to recover from damage sustained during chronic inflammation.

Jessica Macer-Wright and fellow PhD student Vickie Tang have continued to examine how different products formed on reaction of HOCl with DNA alter the function of macrophages and endothelial cells, which line the artery. Jessica has shown that these compounds promote inflammation by altering the expression of inflammatory genes in cells, whereas Vickie demonstrated that these compounds induce stress-related signalling pathways that trigger a specialised cell death pathway linked with fatty plaque disruption and heart attacks. This work suggests that preventing DNA release and

modification may be a novel pathway to target therapeutically to reduce both inflammation and plaque disruption in the arterial wall.

Postdoctoral scientist Dr Bronwyn Brown and PhD student Adrian Abdo have continued our studies relating to how myeloperoxidase oxidants alter the function of low-density lipoproteins (LDL, known as the “bad” cholesterol). Adrian has demonstrated that this type of modified LDL compromises the ability of endothelial cells to make nitric oxide, which alters the contractility of blood vessels.

Bronwyn showed that macrophages handle modified LDL in a manner that is dependent on whether they are “M1” inflammatory or “M2” non-inflammatory types, which are both present in atherosclerotic lesions.

PhD student Leila Reyes has continued her studies examining how oxidants influence the function of heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes), and has shown that HOCl and HOSCN trigger different types of signalling cascades in these cells, which affect the way in which the cells function. She has also shown that a dietary supplement containing selenium compounds shows promise as a therapeutic agent to protect cardiomyoctyes from damage sustained on exposure to these oxidants.

▪ V I S I T I N G S C I E N T I STS The Inflammation Research Group hosted a number of visiting scientists and students to work on collaborative projects with various Universities including Linköping University (Sweden) and Griffith University (Gold Coast).

The studies with Griffith University have yielded some interesting data that formed the basis of an undergraduate Honours Thesis and is currently being prepared for a publication on the protective effects of bile pigments in the prevention of oxidative damage in cardiovascular disease.

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THROMBOSIS GROUP

Professor Shaun Jackson G ROUP LE AD E R

MBBS BMedSci PhD

Professor Shaun Jackson is the Director of Cardiovascular Research and the Group Leader of the Thrombosis Group at HRI. His research interests are focussed on atherothrombosis and cardiovascular disease.

As well as his positions at HRI, Shaun is Research Director of Atherothrombosis services within the Department of Cardiology at the Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) hospital, and Adjunct Professor within the Dept. Molecular & Experimental Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, CA USA. Shaun was a co-founder of the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases in Melbourne and a founder of Kinacia, an Australian biotechnology company developing novel diagnostic and therapeutic products aimed at preventing blood clotting.

▪ O UR RESEARCHER S

Bridget Velasco NZ SUMMER STUDENT

thrombosis research, considering biochemical,

Imala Alwis SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST

Dylan McCuaig-Walton SUMMER STUDENT

biophysical and biomechanical factors that

Hannah Casbolt VISITING STUDENT

Dr Mike Wu POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

impact blood clot formation in vitro and in vivo,

Annabelle Caspersz RESEARCH ASSISTANT

Dr Yuping Yuan SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW

and their capacity to exacerbate development

Brianna Coulter RESEARCH ASSISTANT

of pathological clots leading to ischaemic

Dr Roxane Darbousset POSTDOCTORAL

▪ AB O U T OU R RES E A RC H

organ damage. This comprehensive approach

SCIENTIST

Our research is focussed on determining the

has provided important novel insight not only

Dr Arnold Ju POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

mechanisms underlying clot formation in

into how blood clots form, but also goes a long

Melanie Lim SUMMER STUDENT

healthy individuals; using this knowledge to

way to explain why the drugs we currently

Dr Sophie Maiocchi POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

better understand the mechanisms leading

administer to patients with cardiovascular

Jessica Maclean PHD STUDENT

to platelet hyperactivity and pathological

disease – which are limited to targeting blood-

Emily McCarthy NZ SUMMER STUDENT

blood clot formation; and ultimately

borne chemicals – don’t always work.

Dr Laura Norton POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

developing safer and more effective

Dr André Samson POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

therapies to treat cardiovascular diseases

▪ I M PACT

Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder

including heart attack, stroke, diabetes

Atherothrombosis is arguably Australia’s

SENIOR PRINCIPAL RESEARCH FELLOW

and the metabolic syndrome. Our group

major healthcare problem, affecting >50 per

Dr Amelia Tomkins POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST

adopts an “all-encompassing” approach to

cent of the adult population. Despite intense

043

Thrombosis Group

investigation over the last 40 years into the discovery and development of more effective antithrombotic drugs, the impact of these therapies on mortality rates has remained disappointingly low. This situation is likely to worsen in the future due to the rapidly growing incidence of obesity, diabetes and the metabolic syndrome, diseases that are typically more resistant to the benefits of “classical” antithrombotic therapy. The comprehensive research approach adopted by the Thrombosis Group identify, target and test thrombosis risk in these diseases.

▪ PROJECTS In 2016, our research has focussed on the following projects: • Investigating the role of cell death pathways in regulating the proinflammatory function of platelets and leukocytes during ischaemiareperfusion injury • Identifying new pathways regulating platelet hyperactivity and thrombosis in diabetes • Identifying novel approaches to facilitate blood clot dissolution ▪ ACHI EVEMEN TS Throughout 2016, the Thrombosis Group has continued work on several research projects, with the central focus on understanding blood clot formation in health and disease.

Of note in 2016, novel research undertaken by the Thrombosis Research Group was this year published in the prestigious international science journal Nature Communications (Schoenwaelder et al, Nat. Commun., 2016), and presented by Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder at the 9th International Platelets Symposium in Wellesley, MA USA. Working together with scientists at the Charles Perkins Centre (University of Sydney) and the Centre for Cancer Biology (University of South Australia), these studies identified a new role for a cancer-causing protein, known as “14-3-3”. 14-3-3 has been known for many years to promote cancer, including breast, lung, ovarian, stomach, lymphoma and pancreatic cancer, and numerous research groups are attempting to develop 14-3-3 inhibitors as a new line of cancer treatment. Intriguingly, it has been

Dr Andre Samson.

known for many years that cancer patients are at a higher risk of developing lifethreatening blood clots, including deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in the legs or pulmonary emboli in the lungs, the latter which can be fatal. Strikingly, the types of cancer with an increased propensity to develop dangerous blood clots (including patients diagnosed with stomach, lung, pancreatic, breast, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, ovarian and lung cancer) are those related to the 14-3-3 protein. Merely coincidence? May be not.

Our studies published this year identified a new role for the 14-3-3 protein in promoting life-threatening blood clots, uncovering an important role for 14-3-3 in controlling the way blood clotting cells known as platelets can cope with stress and depletion of energy reserves, helping to control their clotting ability.

These studies have shown that inhibiting the 14-3-3 protein from the platelet can protect against the development of lethal blood clots. These findings are particularly significant in light of current growing interest in the development of drugs to target 14-3-3 for the treatment of cancer.

Most anticancer agents increase the risk of developing blood clots. These studies suggest for the first time that 14-3-3 inhibitors may have the potential to not only treat cancer, but also reduce the risk of lethal blood clots.

A further, ongoing research interest for the Thrombosis Group is the role of biomechanical forces, such as those experienced in blood flow, on blood clot formation. Prior studies from our group have identified this to be a critical determinant regulating blood clot formation. Given the significant disturbances to blood flow that occur within diseased vessels, biomechanical regulation of platelet activation has the capacity to play an important role in pathological blood clot development.

In order to examine this important regulatory Factor, Postdoctoral scientist and engineering graduate Dr Lining (Arnold) Ju has developed a novel state-of-the-art single-molecular in situ cellular manipulation platform or ‘Biomembrane force probe’ (BFP), the first of its kind in Australia, which has the capacity to examine how single platelets can sense mechanical cues, and how this impacts on their abiity to form blood clots.

In collaboration with Professor Cheng Zhu (Georga Tech, Atlanta, USA), an internationally recognised leader in the field of molecular biophysics and mechanobiology, Dr Ju is using this technology to characterise the effects of biomechanical force on blood formation both in health and disease.

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TRANSLATIONAL AND BIOENGINEERING GROUP

G ROUP LE AD E R

▪ OUR RESEARCHERS Jonathan Ciofani SUMMER STUDENT Jui Chien Hung RESEARCH ASSISTANT Emily King RESEARCH ASSISTANT Kekini Kuppan RESEARCH ASSISTANT Anh Nguyen SUMMER STUDENT Dr Monica Lam POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Bob Lee RESEARCH ASSISTANT Dr Philippa Simpson POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Richard Tan PHD STUDENT Nathan Wong VISITING STUDENT Dr Jun Yuan POSTDOCTORAL SCIENTIST Gloria Yuen PHD STUDENT

▪ OUR MISSION Few research organisations in Australia are working on improved medical devices, with the aim of moving the technology from the laboratory to the clinic. By using new tissue engineering methods, our group seeks to develop new devices to improve the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Simultaneously we aim to better understand the biological processes controlling new blood vessel growth as an additional means to improve patient outcomes.

Associate Professor Martin Ng MBBS, PhD, FRACP, FCSANZ

Associate Professor Martin Ng is a physician-scientist and cardiologist. He is the leader of the Translational Research and Bioengineering Group at HRI, a unit he established after completing postdoctoral studies in the Biodesign Innovation Program at Stanford University. His mission was to ‘translate’ scientific discoveries at the lab bench into exciting new treatments for cardiovascular disease. A/Prof Martin Ng is also an Interventional Cardiologist at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he heads an internationally recognised team providing cutting-edge treatment of heart valve and coronary artery disease. He has recently been at the forefront of development of transcatheter technologies/ techniques for treatment of structural heart disease.

▪ ABOUT OUR RESEARCH Our research involves developing new strategies for treating patients with blocked arteries and structural heart disease. This means finding treatments that facilitate the growth of new blood vessels to areas affected by vascular disease and bioengineering synthetic arteries, stents and valves for more effective treatment of vascular disease.

▪ IMPACT Our interdisciplinary research group focusses largely on investigation/development of novel methods for treatment of cardiovascular disease by modulation of angiogenesis, application of vascular physiology and tissue engineering of improved implantable devices.

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Tr a n s l a t i o n a l a n d B i o e n g i n e e r i n g G r o u p

Our lab follows a bio-innovation credo based on the identification of unmet clinical needs combined with research and development of novel solutions.

▪ ACHIEVEMENTS 1 Cutting-edge treatments for heart valve disease Associate Professor Ng founded and heads an internationally recognised percutaneous (keyhole) heart valve treatment program at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Over the last seven years this clinical innovation program has set international benchmarks for excellence in clinical outcomes for revolutionary heart valve procedures such as transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR).

A major problem of percutaneous heart valves (e.g., TAVR) is that there is a tendency for blood to leak around the side of the valve, a problem termed “paravalvular regurgitation” that can increase the risk of mortality after the procedure. To treat paravalvular regurgitation, A/Prof Ng has used cutting-edge polymer technology to develop a world-first highly conformable seal around the skirt outside the valve to eliminate leak, dramatically enhancing outcomes for patients receiving these valves.

As TAVR has become more mainstream, additional intermediate risk patients are now likely to receive percutaneous heart valves, meaning solving paravalvular leak is an urgent and significant endeavour. This technology has received international acclaim and was awarded a NSW Health Medical Device Fund grant. In 2016, A/Prof Ng commenced ‘First In Man’ trials of his novel sealing platform, working closely with industry.

2 Treating the complications of type-2 diabetes In the last 25 years, there has been a greater than threefold increase in the number of Australians suffering from diabetes. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in diabetes, accounting for up to 80 per cent of premature excess mortality. Our group has strong interests in unravelling the fundamental reasons why patients with diabetes suffer from accelerated vascular disease and to develop new treatments. In pioneering work, we found that high glucose levels in diabetes directly interfere with the regulation of a protein called Thioredoxin Interacting Protein, or TXNIP, one of the most

“

Finding and working on difficult, previously intractable problems, is a critical element in delivering benefits to patients.

”

glucose-sensitive genes in the entire human genome. By preventing high glucose-mediated interference with TXNIP, we have been able to strikingly rescue the vascular damage of diabetes, with important implications for the development of new, more effective therapies.

In 2016, in working toward developing TXNIP as a therapeutic target for the vascular complications of diabetes, we have created two novel mouse strains that either overexpress or totally lack TXNIP specifically in the endothelial lining of blood vessels. Our initial characterisation of these mice shows promising data that TXNIP knockdown in the endothelial layer alone can protect arteries from the impaired vessel dilatation that is caused by diabetes. We have also begun investigating whether there is a link between TXNIP and accelerated atherosclerosis in diabetes. In collaboration with Luke Khoo (Biomedical Engineering, RPAH) who designed and custom built a ‘spinning cone’ apparatus to model blood flow on cultured endothelial cells in vitro, we have been examining how TXNIP modulates the inflammatory response to turbulent blood flow. Consequent to our initial promising results that TXNIP upregulation by glucose and turbulent flow is additive, we commissioned a larger array of spinners to enable us to robustly study the potential for therapeutic modulation of TXNIP to reduce the inflammatory response in high glucose.

3 Bioengineering synthetic arteries There are currently no effective synthetic conduits for small diameter vascular grafting such as coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), despite more than 17,000 of these life-saving procedures being performed in Australia each year. Therefore a key objective of vascular bioengineering is the development of new conduits with appropriate mechanical and biological properties. We use synthetic human elastin, a lab-derived mimic of human elastin (the dominant protein in large blood vessels), which is a key regulator of vessel peformance. After several years of engineering and performance testing, we have bioengineered functional blood vessel replacements. Current prototype conduits have demonstrated mechanical properties closely matched to human arteries, combined with favourable vascular cell interactions and blood compatibility. NHMRC funding is facilitating comprehensive pre-clinical testing of these synthetic vessels. Ultimately these blood vessel substitutes stand to improve clinical outcomes for many patients with cardiovascular disease.

4 Bioengineering a next-generation stent for treatment of coronary disease There are more than four million stents deployed worldwide per year. However, current stents have a tendency to clot, causing heart attacks. In collaboration with Prof Marcela Bilek (Applied Physics) and Prof Tony Weiss (Biochemistry) at The University of Sydney, we have continued to develop a next-generation coating for metal alloys that allows the metal stents to be recognised as part of the vasculature by biomimicry. We recently described a segment of human tropoelastin, the dominant protein in human arteries, which can enhance favourable healing responses, while dramatically reducing clot formation when bound to a stent. Importantly, in 2016 the project was expanded to develop stents suitable for treatment of peripheral vascular disease, frequent in the legs of patients with advanced atherosclerosis and/or diabetes. There is no peripheral stent commercially available that shows efficacy beyond two years, meaning there is a pressing need for long-lasting interventions in this disease. Our new stents uniquely suppress the exaggerated healing response that causes other platforms to fail, showing promise as a durable solution. This work is ongoing and has profound implications for improving the safety and efficacy of nextgeneration stents to treat vascular disease.

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VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

Dr Mary Kavurma G ROUP LE AD E R

▪ O UR RES EARCHER S Dr Siân Cartland SENIOR POSTDOCTORAL

TRAIL is regulated under normal

SCIENTIST

mechanisms that promote cell survival/

Pradeep Cholan PHD STUDENT Scott Genner RESEARCH ASSISTANT Kassandra Muirhead HONOURS STUDENT Megan Nash VISITING STUDENT Jayant Ravindran VISITING STUDENT ▪ O UR MI SS I ON 1 To identify mechanisms that promote cell growth and contribute to thickening of the blood vessel wall in cardiovascular disease.

2 To identify why atherosclerotic lesions become unstable and find ways to increase stability.

3 To increase our understanding of how

conditions in cells, and the signalling death that are dysregulated during disease.

4 Understanding how cells are dysregulated will help develop novel approaches to combat disease.

▪ AB O U T O U R RES E A RC H The Vascular Complications Group studies the development of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, with an emphasis on gene regulation and aberrant cell proliferation and cell death. We have identified a new player in the development of vascular disease: the role of TRAIL (TNF-related apoptosisinducing ligand) in atherosclerosis and arterial

PhD, BSc (Hons)

Dr Mary Kavurma joined the HRI in 2013 as Leader of the Vascular Complications Group. Her research focuses on understanding fundamental mechanisms in molecular and cellular biology leading to cardiovascular diseases. Mary holds a PhD in Pathology, from the University of New South Wales’ Centre for Vascular Research, with thesis titled ‘Molecular mechanisms regulating proliferation and apoptosis in vascular smooth muscle cells’.

In 2004, she was awarded a CJ Martin Fellowship from the NHMRC, to undertake research at the University of Cambridge.

She was a recent recipient of a Heart Foundation Career Development Fellowship. Mary also has an active interest in promoting medical research to the lay community.

thickening, providing critical insights into cell survival and death, in the normal and diseased vessel wall, and opened up new opportunities for therapeutic intervention. The Vascular Complications Group is focused on answering critical questions and exploring underlying mechanisms into vascular diseases including in diabetes and kidney disease.

▪ I M PACT Understanding how cells are regulated under normal conditions, and how they become dysregulated in cardiovascular disease and related pathologies, will help uncover new strategies and new therapeutics to combat disease. This will ultimately improve quality of life and may save lives.

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Va s c u l a r C o m p l i c a t i o n s G r o u p

▪ PROJECTS We had a number of projects that we worked on in 2016. Specifically, we examined the following themes: 1 Mechanisms that control oxidative stress in vascular cells 2 How white blood cell functions protect against atherosclerosis 3 Identifying new ways that insulin gene expression is regulated/dysregulated in diabetes 4 Examining the effect of vascular cells in response to high insulin levels and how this promotes cellular growth 5 Identifying new molecules that protect against non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

“

▪ AC H IE V E M E N TS Diabetes mellitus is a highly prevalent chronic metabolic disorder characterised by elevated blood glucose resulting in a range of pathologies. Diabetics are three to four times more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), particularly peripheral artery disease (PAD); conditions where narrowed arteries reduce blood flow to the heart and limbs.

This is a major risk factor for lower-limb amputation. Current interventions are insufficient in many patients because extensive disease precludes effective revascularisation. Additional treatments

We found that in vitro, TRAIL stimulated processes important for blood vessel growth, more effectively than VEGF and FGF-2. In contrast, in an in vivo model of invasion, we found that FGF-2 was more effective at stimulating blood vessel development. Further studies are required to compare the efficacy of treatments in ischaemic vascular diseases. This work was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

are urgently needed. One option is to stimulate blood vessel growth in order to restore blood flow, preserve tissue survival and maintain optimal organ function. Our recent publication showing TRAIL stimulates blood vessel growth in ischaemic PAD, highlights an exciting and novel therapeutic possibility in patients where current treatments have no benefit.

In a follow-up study, we compared TRAIL treatment with other known blood vesselstimulating factors, namely vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2).

smooth muscle cells; the main structural cells in the blood vessel wall. We showed that acute insulin exposure to these cells stimulated TRAIL expression and cell growth, yet chronic insulin exposure, repressed TRAIL and promoted cell death. These findings are significant since insulin’s differential regulation of TRAILdependent cell growth and/or death may have important consequences for insulin’s effect on vascular smooth muscle cells at different stages of diabetes-associated CVD. This work was published in the Journal of Diabetes.

What does it take to succeed as a scientist?

Diligence, determination, hard work, enthusiasm, talent and a little bit of luck.

”

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Pradeep Cholan and Dr Mary Kavurma.

In addition to process regulating blood vessel development in PAD, we examined the effect of high insulin levels on vascular

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VASCULAR IMMUNOLOGY GROUP

Professor Annemarie Hennessy G ROUP LE AD E R

AM, MBBS, PhD, FRACP

Professor Annemarie Hennessy is the leader for the Vascular Immunology Group at HRI and the Dean and Foundation Chair of Medicine at Western Sydney University. She has 19 years’ experience in preeclampsia research and is actively involved in clinical and laboratory research into the causes of high blood pressure during pregnancy. She directs two PhD students at the Heart Research Institute and one at Western Sydney University. In 2015, Annemarie was awarded a Member (AM) in the Order of Australia for her contribution to Medical Research, particularly around clinical hypertension and maternal health.

▪ O U R R ES E A RC H E RS Shikha Aggarwal PHD STUDENT

▪ A B O U T O U R RES E A RC H

Dr Katrina Chau PHD STUDENT Associate Professor Angela Makris

the causes of pre-eclampsia through studying

VISITING SCIENTIST

Suzanne Pears PHD STUDENT Dr Renuka Shanmugalingam PHD STUDENT Bei Xu SENIOR RESEARCH ASSISTANT ▪ O U R M ISS I O N Our projects have a principal interest in understanding the causes and progression of pre-eclampsia or high blood pressure in pregnancy.

The Vascular Immunology Group investigates placentas and placental cells in the laboratory.

We have been able to identify factors coming from the placenta that lead to damage in the mothers’ blood vessels and how this interaction can affect blood pressure and other substances known to increase the risk of long-term blood vessel health and heart disease.

▪ I M PACT The Vascular Immunology group has made several major discoveries about the relationship between high blood pressure in pregnancy and risks of heart disease and high

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Va s c u l a r I m m u n o l o g y G r o u p

blood pressure in later life. This will influence

used in pregnancy acutely affect the

the type of advice that is given to women after

growth and development of the placenta.

their pregnancy.

Our collaborative work looked at the ▪ ACHI EVEMEN TS

correction of high blood pressure in

The projects and collaborations for 2016

pregnancy with partners at the Beth

included major physiology projects examining

Israel Deaconess Medical Centre (USA)

the effects of different Blood Pressure (BP)

and with the University of Lund (Sweden).

medications on anaesthetics and blood pressure control in an acutely volatile situation. We have continued to examine the role of antibodies from the immune system and how they might control blood pressure in pregnancy; while also exploring the ways that standard and new preventative treatments (including aspirin and blood pressure control)

Collaborations with our colleagues at the RPAH, Liverpool and Campbelltown Hospitals also continued to take this research into a clinical domain to achieve genuine translation into clinical practice.

“

Success as a scientist takes energy, friendship and collaboration.

”

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MARCUS BLACKMORE FELLOWSHIPS

Dr Stacy Robertson from the UK and Dr Carmine Gentile from Italy, continued their vital research programs in 2016 under the Marcus Blackmore Fellowship Program. These Fellowships were named in honour of the generous contributions made both personally and through Blackmores Limited, by long-term benefactor, former HRI Chairman and friend to the Institute, Marcus Blackmore AM. The funding gives scientists from the UK and Europe an opportunity to work at the Institute and to collaborate with Research Groups here while continuing to advance our world-class research.

Dr Stacy Robertson MARC U S B L AC K M OR E

Dr Stacy Robertson joined the HRI to investigate whether blood-pressure regulating hormones might also contribute to heart disease.

In 2016, Stacy continued to explore the role of the inflammasome and the use of colchicine in acute coronary syndromes; these studies included collecting more patient samples and the use of in vitro models. Studies investigating circulating microRNA in cardiovascular patients were completed. The blood samples used in these studies were collected from the central coronary and the peripheral circulation in patients with varying degrees of vascular disease.

This allowed us to understand the origin of the microRNAs studied and how disease severity impacts on their levels.

It also helped identify a new biomarker for early detection of disease.

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Marcus Blackmore Fellowships

Dr Carmine Gentile MARCUS BL ACK MORE

Dr Carmine Gentile joined the HRI from after receiving his PhD in Biomedical Sciences focusing on vascular development and regeneration.

In 2016, Dr Carmine Gentile became a world leader in 3D tissue culture with his investigations into the benefits of a bio-printer to print out unique 3D human mini hearts. The 3D bio-printer is used to engineer human heart tissue that can be stuck directly to a damaged organ following a heart attack. The Heart Research Institute purchased a bio-printer with funds from the Ian Potter Foundation.

Our researchers expect the therapy could be available for patients in the next five years, and every effort will be made to get the treatment into hospitals as soon as possible.

This Australian-first experiment could dramatically alter the cardiac treatment landscape, giving patients whose hearts are wounded by an attack a chance to fully recover and return to normal life.

In 2016, Dr Carmine Gentile spent 3 months at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre Harvard Medical School as a Visiting Research Fellow.

“If we can make it work we’ll be changing the lives of thousands of Australians and flipping the world of heart attack treatment on its head,” said Carmine.

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SCHOLARSHIPS

UK SCHOL ARSHIPS In September 2016, HRI welcomed two undergraduate students from the University of Bath to complete a 12-month scholarship. HRI funded the scholarships in partnership with the students’ hosting labs.

The UK students were 50 per cent funded by their hosting lab and 50 per cent by HRI. Hannah Casbolt PROJECT TITLE New approaches to the treatment of ischaemic stroke RESEARCH GROUP Thrombosis SUPERVISORS Professor Shaun Jackson & Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder Megan Nash PROJECT TITLE Characterisation of mice with endothelial and smooth muscle cell-specific TRAIL deletion RESEARCH GROUP Vascular Complications SUPERVISORS Dr Mary Kavurma and Professor Shaun Jackson

Hannah Casbolt.

Megan Nash.

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Scholarships

NEW ZEAL AND SUMMER SCHOL ARSHIPS In November 2016, HRI welcomed eight talented researchers from New Zealand to take part in a summer scholarship at the HRI. The 8-week scholarship (funded by our New Zealand fundraising program) provided highachieving Kiwi students the opportunity to work on a medical research project directly related to cardiovascular disease, expand on their skills and knowledge and be mentored in a world-class research institute.

PROJECT TITLE

Rose Gannaway Tissue Engineering New Biomaterials for Treating Cardiovascular Disease RESEARCH GROUP Applied Materials Group SUPERVISORS Dr Steven Wise

Cardiometabolic Disease Research RESEARCH GROUP Cardiometabolic Disease Group SUPERVISORS Dr John O’Sullivan

Georgia Heffernan The Anti-thrombogenic Mechanism of PIII Coated Surfaces RESEARCH GROUP Cardiovascular Medical Devices Group SUPERVISORS Dr Anna Waterhouse

Bailey McIntosh PROJECT TITLE Cardiometabolic Disease Research RESEARCH GROUP Cardiometabolic Disease Group SUPERVISORS Dr John O’Sullivan

Natalie Joe

Bridget Velasco PROJECT TITLE Characterizing the Role of Platelet Integrin aIIbß3 in Thrombosis and in Anti-Thrombotic Therapy RESEARCH GROUP Thrombosis Group SUPERVISORS Dr Andre Samson, Dr Imala Alwis and Dr Arnold Ju

PROJECT TITLE

Fibrinogen Isolation from Platelet Poor Plasma RESEARCH GROUP Thrombosis Group SUPERVISORS Dr Yuping Yuan PROJECT TITLE

The 2016-17 Summer Scholarship Recipients were: Kevin Choi PROJECT TITLE TLP surface coatings on medical devices RESEARCH GROUP Cardiovascular Medical Devices Group SUPERVISORS Dr Anna Waterhouse

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Emily McCarthy Fibrinogen Isolation from Platelet Poor Plasma RESEARCH GROUP Thrombosis Group SUPERVISORS Dr Yuping Yuan PROJECT TITLE

Natalie Joe PROJECT TITLE

Christine Sy Automation of the Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation of the Thoracic Aorta RESEARCH GROUP Cardiac Imaging Group SUPERVISORS Professor Stuart Grieve and Dr Fraser Callaghan PROJECT TITLE

HRI 2016 New Zealand Summer Scholars: Georgia Heffernan, Rose Gannaway, Emily McCarthy, Baily McIntosh, Natalie Joe, Bridget Velasco, Christine Sy and Kevin Choi.

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POST GRADUATE STUDENT PROGRAM

▪ ONGOING STUDENTS

▪ P H D S AWA R D E D

▪ S C H O L A R S H I P S AWA R D E D

Jessica Maclean

Komal Kapoor

James McFadyen

THROMBOSIS GROUP

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

THROMBOSIS GROUP

Adrian Abdo

The role of microglia in sympathetic control of blood pressure in normotension and hypertension

Wheaton Postgraduate Scholarship

Amol Bhandare

University of Sydney Postgraduate Award (2016-2019)

INFLAMMATION GROUP

Jessica Macer-Wright INFLAMMATION GROUP

Leila Reyes INFLAMMATION GROUP

Vickie Tang INFLAMMATION GROUP

Yunjia (Carmen) Zhang INFLAMMATION GROUP

Kelly Gardiner FREE RADICAL GROUP

Luke Hall FREE RADICAL GROUP

Maryam Karimi

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Laura Vanags IMMUNOBIOLOGY GROUP

Anisyah Ridiandries IMMUNOBIOLOGY GROUP

Dominic Love INFLAMMATION GROUP

FREE RADICAL GROUP

Cassidy Moeke

Dr Luke Carroll

Siriluck (Pam) Vanichkitrungruang

FREE RADICAL GROUP

INFLAMMATION GROUP

(PhD Thesis submitted November 2016)

Modulation of oxidative damage by selenium compounds

Seren Ucak HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Priyashiel Parikh

Honours thesis submitted

FREE RADICAL GROUP

Jasmine Joy Fyfe TSP thesis submitted

Mechanisms and biological consequences of damage to arterial endothelial cells by peroxynitrous acid

Pradeep Cholan

Georg Degendorfer

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

FREE RADICAL GROUP

Kassandra Muirhead

Mechanisms and biological consequences of damage to extracellular matrix proteins by peroxynitrite

VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS

Honours thesis submitted, “Role of TRAIL in regulating insulin expression and function in vivo”

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Microglial and neurochemical mechanisms of seizure-induced central autonomic cardiovascular function

The role of HOSCN in the oxidation of proteins and cellular damage in atherosclerosis

FREE RADICAL GROUP

Zohra Kakall

Hanis Harith VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

TRAIL: A Link between Inflammation, Insulin Resistance and Vascular Complications James McFadyen THROMBOSIS GROUP

Investigating the mechanisms of platelet hyperactivity in diabetes mellitus.

Supervisors: SP Jackson, SM Schoenwaelder and Y Yuan.

Anisyah Ridiandries.

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P o s t G r a d u a t e St u d e n t P r o g r a m

▪ P R I Z E S A N D AWA R D S

▪ T R AV E L S C H O L A R S H I P S AWA R D E D

Dr Stephen Abbott HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Pradeep Cholan

AW Campbell Award

VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

Australasian Neuroscience Society

AVBS student travel award to attend the AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA ASM

Dr Siân Cartland VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

AVBS Young Investigator/Early Career Researcher Best Oral Presentation Pradeep Cholan Zohra Kakall.

Seung Jae Kim HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Student travel award to attend ANS 2016 Luke Hall

VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

FREE RADICAL GROUP

Postgraduate Research Support Scheme (PRSS)

Student travel award to attend the Society for Free Radical Research Australasia meeting, Gold Coast

Myfanwy Cohen HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

USYD Postgraduate Research Support Scheme (PRSS) Zohra Kakall HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

USYD Postgraduate Research Support Scheme (PRSS) Seung Jae Kim HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

USYD Postgraduate Research Support Scheme (PRSS) Elysse Filipe APPLIED MATERIALS GROUP

Best Oral Presentation, PhD, Australian Society of Medical Researchers (ASMR) Scott Genner VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

Josephine Anderson Prize for Best Oral Presentation Luke Hall FREE RADICAL GROUP

Awarded a Poster Prize at the Society for Free Radical Research Australasia meeting, Gold Coast Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder THROMBOSIS GROUP

Elected President, Australian Vascular Biology Society (AVBS) Professor Shaun Jackson THROMBOSIS GROUP

Invited member of the Faculty of 1000 Prime (F1000 Prime)- Immunopharmacology and haematologic pharmacology section Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder.

Elysse Filipe.

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CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS

▪ O R AL PRESEN TAT IO NS Dr Stephen Abbott HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Australasian Neuroscience Society, 3-7 December 2016, Hobart, Australia Future leader presentation at HRI symposium.

Adrian Abdo

Pradeep Cholan VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

Student Oral Finalist, “Vascular TRAIL expression is increased in endothelial cells by angioensin II.” AVBS/AAS/HPBRCA meeting, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Zoe Clayton CELL THERAPEUTICS GROUP

“Transplantation of induced pluripotent INFLAMMATION GROUP stem cell-derived endothelial cells (iPSC“Modification of low-density lipoprotein by ECs) and induced endothelial cells (iECs) myeloperoxidase oxidants – a pathway to endothelial dysfunction in atherosclerosis?” in wound healing; can a polycaprolactone/ gelatin scaffold enhance their therapeutic SFRBM/SFRRI November 2016, San potential?” Clayton Z, Tan R, Sadeghipour Francisco, USA. S, Wise S, Patel S, International Vascular Biology Meeting 30 October, 3 November Dr Bronwyn Brown INFLAMMATION GROUP 2016, Boston, USA. “Low-density lipoproteins modified by Dr Roxane Darbousset myeloperoxidase-macrophage phenotype and function”, AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Dr Sian Cartland VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

YI/ECR Finalist, “Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, vascular inflammation and insulin resistance are exacerbated by TRAIL in mice”. Joint Australian Vascular Biology Society, Australian Atherosclerosis Society, High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia meeting, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

“TRAIL is reduced in the circulation of patients with CVD, and in monocytes of ACS patients”. Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, Adelaide, 2016.

Alex Chan APPLIED MATERIALS

Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine International Society meeting 2016, Taipei.

Pradeep Cholan VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

“Vascular TRAIL expression is increased in endothelial cells by Angiotensin II”, Horizons Meeting 2016, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

Pradeep Cholan VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

“Vascular TRAIL expression is increased in atherosclerosis and by angiotensin II in endothelial cells.” Australian Society for Medical Research, 6 June 2016, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Australia.

THROMBOSIS GROUP

YI/ECR Finalist, “14-3-3 regulates the mitochondrial respiratory reserve linked to platelet phosphatidylserine exposure and procoagulant function.” AVBS/AAS/ HBPRCA meeting, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Melissa Farnham THROMBOSIS GROUP

Scott Genner VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

“TRAIL protects against non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).” Australian Society for Medical Research, 6 June 2016, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia.

“Protective role of TRAIL in NAFLD”, Horizons Meeting 2016, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

Luke Hall FREE RADICAL GROUP

“Oral pre-treatment of Sprague-Dawley rats with thiocyanate protects against myocardial ischaemia-reperfusion injury.”, 24th Annual Meeting of the Society for Free Radical Research (Australasia), Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia, December 5-7, 2016.

Associate Professor Clare Hawkins INFLAMMATION GROUP

“Role of the myeloperoxidase oxidant HOSCN in redox perturbation and cellular dysfunction”, Gordon Research Conference on Oxygen Radicals, Ventura, USA, 7 – 12 February 2016.

Jack Hywood CELL THERAPEUTICS GROUP

Future leader presentation at HRI symposium Elysse Filipe, Applied Materials Research Group, Bioengineered Silk Grafts for Arterial Revascularisation, Best Oral Presentation at the Australian Society for Medical Research meeting 2016, June 2016, Sydney, Australia.

Young Investigator Finalist, “Comparison of the angiogenic properties of induced endothelial cells transdifferentiated from fibroblasts derived from neonates and patients with peripheral arterial disease.”

Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, Adelaide, 2016.

Bioengineered Silk Conduits Are Effective for Small Diameter Revascularization, American Heart Association, November 2016, New Orleans, USA.

Dr Mary Kavurma

Dr Carmine Gentile FREE RADICAL GROUP

YI/ECR Finalist, “Cardiac spheroids as novel 3d in vitro models to study human heart biology and pharmacology.” AVBS/AAS/ HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

“The Role played by eNOS in Cardiovascular Regeneration”, July 2016, seminar at the Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, USA.

COMPLICATIONS GROUP

“On the TRAIL of cardiovascular disease and diabetes”. Biology Domain Seminar, Charles Perkins Centre, USyd. “Insights into atherosclerosis from gene expression profiling”. Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, Aug 2016.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is exacerbated with TRAIL deletion, associating with vascular inflammation and insulin resistance, Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, Aug 2016.

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Conferences and Presentations

Dr Dominic Love INFLAMMATION GROUP

Role of HOSCN in the disruption of metabolic function in macrophages, Australian Society for Medical Research, 6 June 2016, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Australia.

Kassandra Muirhead VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

“The role of TRAIL in regulating insulin expression and function”, Horizons Meeting 2016, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

Proteolysis, from Basic Mechanisms to Translational Science. Session title - New Insights into Protease Functions in the Cardiovascular System, Feb 14-19, 2016, Gordon Research Conference, California, USA.

by Director Bob Graham, including meeting with laboratory group leaders, lunch with PhD students and dinner with senior leadership of VCCRI.

Dr Joanne Tan

THROMBOSIS GROUP

IMMUNOBIOLOGY GROUP

Invited Institutional talk: “Cooperative unfolding of platelet mechanoreceptor GPIbalpha”. The Sydney Region SingleMolecule Discussion Club organized by Drs. Antoine van Oijen (ARC Laureate Fellow) and Till Boecking (ARC Future Fellow). University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia 10 June 2016.

“microRNA-181C and its putative target TRIM2 mediate the ability of high density lipoproteins to rescue diabetes-impaired angiogenesis.” AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Richard Tan

Dr Lining (Arnold) Ju

Dhanya Ravindran

TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH GROUP

Dr Mike Wu

IMMUNOBIOLOGY GROUP

Australian Society for Medical Research, 6 June 2016, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Australia.

THROMBOSIS GROUP

Student Oral Finalist, “The rate of atherosclerosis development determines changes in plaque volume and composition following gene transfer of the broad spectrum chemokine binding protein ‘M3’.”

AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Dr Ben Rayner INFLAMMATION GROUP

“The unfolded protein response initiates the astrocyte inflammatory response following exposure to the smoking-associated oxidant hypothiocyanous acid.” Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, San Francisco, USA, November 2016.

“The unfolded protein response initiates the astrocyte inflammatory response following exposure to the smoking-associated oxidant hypothiocyanous acid.” Society for Free Radical Research Australasia, Gold Coast, December 2016.

Dr Anisyah Ridiandries IMMUNOBIOLOGY GROUP

“Broad spectrum CC-chemokine inhibition improves wound healing and wound angiogenesis.” AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Dr Andre Samson THROMBOSIS GROUP

Session chair/discussion leader, Gordon Research Seminar - “Plasminogen Activation & Extracellular Proteolysis”. Session title Extracellular Proteases in Inflammation and Immunity. Feb 13-14, 2016, CA, USA Session chair/discussion leader, “Plasminogen Activation & Extracellular Proteolysis” - Novel Biological Functions of Plasminogen Activation and Extracellular

Dr Mike Wu

Invited Institutional talk: CPC Biology Domain seminar series; Topic: Microvascular thromboinflammation; Date: June 16, Level 6 CPC seminar room.

THROMBOSIS GROUP

“Identification of a novel neutrophildependent thrombotic mechanism in the lung.” AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

“Dying platelets induce neutrophil aggregates: lung clots.” AAVBS/AAS/ HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Dr Amelia Tomkins Invited presentation, Gordon Research Seminar - “Plasminogen Activation & Extracellular Proteolysis”. Session title Extracellular Proteases in Haemostasis and Thrombosis; seminar title - “Thrombolysis for Recanalization in a Model of Carotid Artery Occlusion”. February 14, 2016, CA, USA. Thrombosis Research Group 01/16 to 03/16.

Dr Mike Wu

Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder THROMBOSIS GROUP

Invited presentation; Lions Club of Bondi – Guest Speaker. May 23, 2016; “Stroke research at HRI”.

Imala Alwis THROMBOSIS GROUP

Invited Institution talk; The Kids Research Institute at the Children’s hospital at Westmead Weekly seminar series Title: “New insights into thromboinflammation using confocal intravital microscopy and thrombosis models” Prof Shaun Jackson THROMBOSIS GROUP

International conference presentation; Symposium presentation; Platelets 2016 9th International Symposium, Wellesley, MA USA. (Sept. 2016).

THROMBOSIS GROUP

Invited Symposium Presentation: “Microvascular thrombosis and inflammation: Thromboinflammation”; Conference title: Centenary Institute Symposium - “Imaging the endothelium in helath and disease”: Location/date: Wed May 4, 2016, Centenary Institute, University of Sydney.

Prof Shaun Jackson THROMBOSIS GROUP

Invited Instiutional Lecture: Victor Chang Cardiac research Institute - Barbara Ell Seminar; “Platelet death and remote organ injury”, May 6, 2016. This seminar was part of an entire day of programmed events hosted

International conference presentation; Symposium presentation; Gordon Research Conference – Hemostasis, Vermont, USA. (July 2016) – Title “Role of Procoagulant Platelets in Ischemia Reperfusion”.

Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder THROMBOSIS GROUP

International conference presentation; Platelets 2016 9th International Symposium, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA – Selected oral presentation.

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CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS

▪ P O STER PRES EN TAT IO NS Imala Alwis THROMBOSIS GROUP

“Investigating the biochemical and biophysical mechanisms that influence excessive leukocyte recruitment on platelet thrombi following ischemia–

“The myeloperoxidase-derived oxidant hypochlorous acid induces macrophage extracellular trap release and promotes inflammation”, Society for Free Radical Research Europe, Budapest, Hungary, 8 – 11 June 2016.

Dr Monica (Yuen Ting) Lam

reperfusion injury.” Joint Australian Vascular

TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH AND BIOENGINEERING

Biology Society, Australian Atherosclerosis

GROUP

Society, High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia meeting, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Dr Sian Cartland

“Genomic action of androge receptor modulates androgen augmentation of ischaemia-induced neovascularisation.”

AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

“TRAIL modulates monocyte/macrophage phenotype to exacerbate atherosclerosis.”

Joint Australian Vascular Biology Society, AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Pradeep Manuneedhi Cholan VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

“TRAIL suppresses superoxide production in diseased vessels and enhances antioxidant expression in endothelial cells.” AVBS/ AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Zoe Clayton CELL THERAPEUTICS GROUP

“Transplantation of induced pluripotent stem cell-derived endothelial cells (iPSCECs) and induced endothelial cells (iECs) in wound healing; can a polycaprolactone/ gelatin scaffold enhance their therapeutic potential?” Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, Adelaide, 2016

Dr Sophie Maiocchi THROMBOSIS GROUP

YI/ECR Moderated Poster Finalists, “A novel visualisation technique to investigate thrombo-inflammation during intestinal ischemia reperfusion.” AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Leila Reyes INFLAMMATION GROUP

“The differential cellular effects of myeloperoxidase-derived oxidants hypochlorous acid and hypothiocyanous acid in cardiac myocytes.” Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, November 2016, San

THROMBOSIS GROUP

“Plasminogen Activation & Extracellular Proteolysis.” Novel Biological Functions of Plasminogen Activation and Extracellular

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Intermittent Intravenous injections of circulating Angiotensin II causes sustained increases in sympathetic nerve activity in anaesthetised rats. Australian Neuroscience Society 2016, 7-10 December, Hobart, Australia.

Intermittent Intravenous injections of circulating Angiotensin II causes sustained increases in sympathetic nerve activity in anaesthetised rats. Central Cardiorespiratory Control: Future Directions Scientific Meeting October 2016, Melbourne, Australia.

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Proteolysis, from Basic Mechanisms to Translational Science. Poster abstract title - Is

Research Seminar (Feb 13-14) and Gordon Research Conference (Feb 14-19) Activation & Extracellular Proteolysis”.

Poster abstract title - MouseMove: an open source program for semi-automated analysis of movement and cognitive testing in rodents.

Gordon Research Seminar (Feb 13-14) and Gordon Research Conference (Feb 14-19).

INFLAMMATION GROUP

November 2016.

Seung Jae Kim

Spinal intermittent orexin-A is sufficient for sympathetic long-term facilitation, and sensitizes the chemoreceptor response to hypoxia in rats. Australian Medical Research Society, June 2016, Sydney, Australia.

of improving thrombolysis in vivo? Gordon

“Hypothiocyanous acid (HOSCN) redirects macrophage glycolytic flux through the pentose phosphate pathway – an adaptation to oxidative stress in inflammation?” Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, San Francisco, USA, 16 – 19

INFLAMMATION GROUP

“Investigating the role of peptidylarginine deaminase in macrophage extracellular trap formation.” AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Dr Andre Samson

VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS GROUP

Associate Professor Clare Hawkins

Yunjia (Carmen) Zhang

Seung Jae Kim

inhibition of clot retraction an effective way

“Investigating the role of TRAIL in promoting an angiogenic response.” AVBS/AAS/ HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

“Power spectrum analysis as a measure of vascular reactivity: exploring neural control of cardiovascular function.” AVBS/ AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Francisco, USA.

Scott Genner “TRAIL protects against fatty liver in vivo and in vitro.” AVBS/AAS/HBPRCA, 7-10 December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

Seren Ucak

Vickie Tang INFLAMMATION GROUP

“Chlorinated nucleosides – a novel inducer of endothelial dysfunction in atherosclerosis?” Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, November 2016, San Francisco, USA.

Polina Nedoboy HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Identification of tyrosine hydroxylase immunoreactive C1 neurons activated by kainic acid-induced seizure in rats. Central Cardiorespiratory Control: Future Directions Scientific Meeting, October 2016, Melbourne, Australia.

Zohra Kakall HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

The role of medullary neurons in sympathetic elevation following acuteintermittent hypoxia. Australasian Neuroscience Society Scientific Meeting, December 2016, Hobart, Australia.

059

Conferences and Presentations

Zohra Kakall

Dr Carmine Gentile

Dr Lining (Arnold) Ju

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

FREE RADICAL GROUP

THROMBOSIS GROUP:

The role of PACAP and rostral ventrolateral medullary neurons in sympathetic elevation following acute-intermittent hypoxia. Central Cardiorespiratory Control: Future Directions Scientific Meeting, October 2016, Melbourne, Australia.

Myfanwy Cohen HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Power spectrum analysis as a measure of vascular reactivity: exploring neural control of cardiovascular function. Central Cardiorespiratory Control: Future Directions Annual Scientific Meeting, October 2016, Melbourne, Australia.

Dr Stephen Abbott HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

Reciprocal control of drinking by the median preoptic nucleus. Australian Society for Neuroscience Conference, Hobart Dec 2016 Optogenetic stimulation of distinct populations of anterior preoptic neurons reveals a locus for the reciprocal control of thirst, Experimental Biology 2016, San Diego, USA. Professor Paul Pilowsky HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

pSer40 Tyrosine Hydroxylase immunohistochemistry identifies the anatomical location of C1 neurons in rat RVLM that are activated by hypotension, Experimental Biology 2016, San Diego, USA. Dr Luke Carroll FREE RADICAL GROUP

“Formation and detection of tryptophan crosslinks in model compounds, peptides and proteins.”, Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, November 2016, San Francisco, USA. Kelly Gardiner FREE RADICAL GROUP

“Characterizing the Reactions of Diselenides with Reactive Oxidants Generated During Chronic Inflammation.”, Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, November 2016, San Francisco, USA. Maryam Karimi FREE RADICAL GROUP

“Characterisation of the novel products of protein oxidation by the inflammatory oxidant hypochlorous acid (HOCl) using Raman spectroscopy.”, Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, November 2016, San Francisco, USA.

“Doxorubicin-Mediated Toxic Effects Are Mediated Via NO/eNOS in a Novel 3D in Vitro Model of the Human Heart”, Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, November 2016, San Francisco, USA. Luke Hall

Invited Institutional talk: “Cooperative unfolding of platelet mechanoreceptor GPIbalpha”. The Sydney Region SingleMolecule Discussion Club organized by Drs. Antoine van Oijen (ARC Laureate Fellow) and Till Boecking (ARC Future Fellow). University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia 10 June 2016.

FREE RADICAL GROUP

“Oral treatment of high fat diet fed ApoE/- mice with thiocyanate has varying dose-dependent effects on atherosclerosis development.”, Society for Free Radical Research Australasia, December 2016, Gold Coast, Australia.

Dr Mike Wu THROMBOSIS GROUP

Invited Institutional talk CPC Biology Domain seminar series; Topic: Microvascular thromboinflammation; Date: June 16, Level 6 CPC seminar room.

Dr Luke Carroll

Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder

FREE RADICAL GROUP

THROMBOSIS GROUP:

“Formation and detection of tryptophan crosslinks in model compounds, peptides and proteins.”, Society for Free Radical Research Australasia, December 2016, Gold Coast, Australia.

Dr Luke Carroll FREE RADICAL GROUP

“Chloramine transfer from imidazole rings to neighbouring amines and the formation of dichloramines.”, Society for Free Radical Research Australasia, December 2016, Gold Coast, Australia.

Dr Georg Degendorfer FREE RADICAL GROUP

“Singlet oxygen mediated damage to tryptophan residues: Probing the effect of localised Lys residues on Trp reactivity using model peptides.”, Society for Free Radical Research Australasia, December 2016, Gold Coast, Australia.

Dr Carmine Gentile FREE RADICAL GROUP

“VEGF/eNOS-mediated Cardiomyocyte Proliferation: A Novel Mechanism to regulate Cardiovascular Regeneration in Mice and Humans” Experimental Biology 2016, April 2016, San Diego, USA. Prof Shaun Jackson THROMBOSIS GROUP

Invited Instiutional Lecture: Victor Chang Cardiac research Institute - Barbara Ell Seminar; “Platelet death and remote organ injury”, May 6, 2016. This seminar was part of an entire day of programmed events hosted

by Director Bob Graham, including meeting with laboratory group leaders, lunch with PhD students and dinner with senior leadership of VCCRI.

Invited presentation; Lions Club of Bondi – Guest Speaker. May 23, 2016; “Stroke research at HRI”.

Imala Alwis THROMBOSIS GROUP

Invited Institution talk The Kids Research Institute at the Children’s hospital at Westmead Weekly seminar series Title: “New insights into thromboinflammation using confocal intravital microscopy and thrombosis models”.

Prof Shaun Jackson THROMBOSIS GROUP

International conference presentation; Symposium presentation; Platelets 2016 9th International Symposium, Wellesley, MA USA. (Sept. 2016).

International conference presentation; Symposium presentation; Gordon Research Conference – Hemostasis, Vermont, USA. (July 2016) – Title “Role of Procoagulant Platelets in Ischemia Reperfusion”.

Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder THROMBOSIS GROUP

International conference presentation; Platelets 2016 9th International Symposium, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA – Selected oral presentation.

Poster title: 14-3-3z regulates the mitochondrial respiratory reserve linked to platelet phosphatidylserine exposure and procoagulant function. Platelets 2016 9th InternationalSymposium, Wellesley, MA USA; abstract selected for oral presentation (Sept. 2016).

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PUBLICATIONS

• P rofessor Shaun Jackson, Associate Professor Simone Schoenwaelder – Thrombosis Group. Anti-thrombotic methods and the treatment of diseases and conditions associated with thrombi. Provisional patent Application No. 2016901740, filed May 11th, 2016; Australia.

• Abbott SB, Machado NL, Geerling JC, Saper CB, “Reciprocal Control of Drinking Behavior

by Median Preoptic Neurons in Mice.” 2016, Journal of Neuroscience.

• A khavan, B. Wise, S.G. and Bilek, M.M.M, “Substrate-regulated growth of plasma polymerized films on carbide-forming metals.” 2016, Langmuir.

• Arnott C, Punnia-Moorthy G, Tan J, Sadeghipour S, Bursill C, Patel S, “The Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Inhibitors Ranibizumab and Aflibercept Markedly Increase Expression of Atherosclerosis-Associated Inflammatory Mediators on Vascular Endothelial Cells” 2016 PLoS ONE. • Bhandare AM, Kapoor K, Farnham MMJ, Pilowsky PM, “Microglia PACAP and glutamate: Friends or foes in seizure-induced autonomic dysfunction and SUDEP?” 2016, Respiratory Physiology and Neuroabiology 226: 39-50. doi: 101016/jresp201601003.

• Callaghan FM, Arnott C, Figtree GA, Kutty S, Celermajer DS, Grieve SM. “Quantifying right atrial filling and emptying: A 4D-flow MRI study.” 2016, Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

• Callaghan FM, Kozor R, Sherrah AG, Vallely M, Celermajer D, Figtree GA, Grieve SM, “Use of multi-velocity encoding 4D flow MRI to improve quantification of flow patterns in the aorta.” 2016, Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging 43: 352-363. doi: 101002/jmri24991.

• C artland SP, Genner S, Zahoor A, Kavurma MM. “Comparative evaluation of TRAIL, FGF2 and VEGF-A-induced angiogenesis in vitro and in vivo.” International Journal of Medical Sciences. 2016 Dec 2;17(12). pii: E2025.

• Celermajer D. “Carotid extra-medial thickness does not predict adverse cardiovascular outcomes in high-risk adults” 2016, Diabetes & Metabolism.

• Celermajer D. “A model of early transient pressure overload simulating repair of aortic coarctation in childhood.” 2016.

The Journal of Thoratic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

• Clayton ZE, Yuen GSC, Sadeghipour S, Hywood JD, Wong JT, Huang N, Ng MCK, Cooke JP, Patel S. “A comparison of the pro-angiogenic potential of human induced pluripotent stem cells derived endothelial cells and induced endothelial cells in a murine model of peripheral arterial disease.”

International Journal of Cardiology, in press.

• Clayton ZE, Sadeghipour S, Wong J... Patel S. “Transplantation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Derived Endothelial Cells (iPSCECs) and Induced Endothelial Cells (iECs) in a Murine Model of Wound Healing.” 2016. Heart Lung and Circulation.

• Cordina R, von Klemperer K, Kempny A, West C, Senior R, Celermajer DS, Gatzoulis MA, Babu-Narayan SV, Li W. “Echocardiographic Predictors of Mortality in Adults With a Fontan Circulation.” 2016 JACC Cardiovasc Imaging.

• Bisoendial R, Tabet F, Tak PP, Petrides F, Torres LFC, Hou L, Cook A, Barter PJ, Weninger W, Rye K-A, “Apolipoprotein A-I Limits the Negative Effect of Tumor Necrosis Factor on Lymphangiogenesis.” 2016, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology 35: 2443-2450. doi: 101161/ ATVBAHA115305777.

• Cai TY, Sullivan TR, Ayer JG, Harmer JA, Leeder SR, Toelle BG, Marks GB, Celermajer DS, Skilton MR. “Carotid extramedial thickness is associated with local arterial stiffness in children.” 2016.

J Hypertens.

• Choudhary P, Nandakumar R, Greig H, Broadhurst P, Dean J, Puranik R, Celermajer DS, Hillis GS. “Structural and electrical cardiac abnormalities are prevalent in asymptomatic adults with myotonic dystrophy.” 2016 , Heart.

• C ook NL, Moeke CH, Fantoni, LI, Pattison DI, Davies MJ, “The myeloperoxidase-derived oxidant hypothiocyanous acid inhibits protein tyrosine phosphatases via oxidation of key cysteine residues.” 2016, Free Radical Biology and Medicine 90: 195-205. doi: 101016/ jfreeradbiomed201511025.

• Bhandare AM, Kapoor K, Pilowsky PM, Farnham MMJ, “Seizure-Induced sympathoexcitation is caused by activation of glutamatergic receptors in RVLM that also causes proarrhythmogenic changes mediated by PACAP and microglia in rats.”

2016 Journal of Neuroscience 36: 506-517. doi: 101523/JNEUROSCI2584-152016.

• Cai TY, Magnussen C, Haluska B, Johnson DW, Mottram PM, Isbel N, Celermajer DS, Marwick TH, Skilton MR, “Carotid extramedial thickness does not predict adverse cardiovascular outcomes in high-risk adults.”

2016, Diabetes & Metabolism.

• Chia EM, Lau EM, Xuan W, Celermajer DS, Thomas L. “Exercise testing can unmask right ventricular dysfunction in systemic sclerosis patients with normal resting pulmonary artery pressure.” 2016. International Journal of Cardiology.

• Degendorfer G, Chuang CY, Kawasaki H, Hammer A, Malle E, Yamakura F, Davies MJ, “Peroxnitrite-mediated oxidation of plasma fibronectin.” 2016, Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 97, 602-615.

• Celermajer D, Strange G, Cordina R, Selbie L, Sholler G, Winlaw D, Alphonso N, Justo R, Nicholae M, Kasparian N et al. “Congenital Heart Disease Requires a Lifetime Continuum of Care: A Call for a Regional Registry.” 2016 Heart Lung and Circulation.

• Chana T, Dabina B, Hyuna K, Ranasinghec I, Neubeckd L, Aliprandi-Costad B, Lefkovitse J, Devlinf G, Juergensg C, Chewh DP, Briegera D, Freedman B. “Falling cholesterol trend at acute coronary syndrome presentation is strongly related to statin use for secondary prevention.” 2016 International Journal of Cardiology.

• E rlandsson L., Nääv, Å, Hennessy A, Vaiman D, Gram M, Åkerström BD, & Hansson SR, “Inventory of novel animal models addressing etiology of preeclampsia in the development of new therapeutic/intervention opportunities.” 2016, American Journal of Reproductive Immunology 75, 402-410. doi:10.1111/aji.12460.

• Gentile C, “Filling the Gaps between the In Vivo and In Vitro Microenvironment: Engineering of Spheroids for Stem Cell Technology” 2016, Current Stem Cell Research and Therapy, 11, 652-665.

• Geronimo, FRB, Barter, PJ, Rye, KA, Heather, AK, Shearston, KD, Rodgers, KJ, “Plaque stabilizing effects of apolipoprotein A-IV.” 2016, Atherosclerosis 251: 39-46 doi: 101016/ jatherosclerosis201604019.

061

Publications

• Grieve S “A fundamental method for improving signal and resolution in 4D-flow data.” 2016. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

• Grimaldi A, Mocumbi AO, Freers J, Lachaud M, Mirabel M, Ferreira B, Narayanan K, Celermajer DS, Sidi D, Jouven X, Marijon E. “Tropical Endomyocardial Fibrosis: Natural History, Challenges, and Perspectives.” 2016 Circulation.

• Harith, HH, Di Bartolo, BA, Cartland, SP, Genner, S, Kavurma, MM, “Insulin promotes vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation and apoptosis via differential regulation of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosisinducing ligand.” 2016 Journal of Diabetes 8: 568-578 doi: 101111/1753-040712339.

• Hiob, M.A., Trane, A.E., Wise, S.G., Bernatchez, P.N., and Weiss, A.S. “Tropoelastin enhances nitric oxide production by endothelial cells.” 2016 Nanomedicine.

• Hywood J, Sadeghipour S, Clayton Z, Cooke J, Patel S. Comparison of the angiogenic properties of induced endothelial cells transdifferentiated from fibroblasts derived from neonates and patients with peripheral arterial disease.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Dr Dominic Love and Associate Professor Clare Hawkins.

• Karimi GK, Liu CC, Garcia A, Gentile C, Fry NA, Hamilton EJ, Hawkins CL, Figtree GL. “β3 Adrenergic Stimulation Restores Nitric Oxide/Redox Balance and Enhances Endothelial Function in Hyperglycemia.”

2016, Journal of The American Heart Association.

• Kim SJ, Farnham M, Pilowsky PM. “Intrathecal intermittent orexin-A causes prolonged sympathetic facilitation and sensitizes the peripheral chemoreceptor response to hypoxia in rat.” 2016 Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

• Kapadia R, Choudhary P, Collins N, Celermajer D, Puranik R. “Left Ventricular Non-compaction in Holt-Oram Syndrome. “ 2016, Heart Lung and Circulation

• K im, SJ, Kim, YJ, Kakall, Z, Farnham, MMJ, Pilowsky, PM “Intermittent hypoxia-induced cardiorespiratory long-term facilitation: A new role for microglia” 2016 Respiratory Physiology and Neurobiology 226: 30-38 doi: 101016/jresp201603012.

• I ndo HP, Majima HJ, Terada M, Suenaga S, Tomita K, Yamada S, Higashibata A, Ishioka N, Kanekura T, Nonaka I, Hawkins CL, Davies MJ, St Clair DK, Mukai C, “Changes in mitochondrial homeostasis and redox status in astronauts following long stays in space.”, Scientific Reports, 2016.

• Kapellas K, Mejia G, Bartold PM, Skilton MR, Maple-Brown LJ, Slade GD, O’Dea K, Brown A, Celermajer DS, Jamieson LM. “Periodontal therapy and glycaemic control among individuals with type 2 diabetes: reflections from the PerioCardio study.”

2016, Int J Dent Hyg.

• I smael FO, Barrett TJ, Sheipouri D, Brown BE, Davies MJ, Hawkins CL, “Role of myeloperoxidase oxidants in the modulation of cellular lysosomal enzyme function: A contributing factor to macrophage dysfunction in atherosclerosis?”, PLoS One, 2016.

• K apoor, K., Bhandare, A.M., Farnham, M.M.J., Pilowsky, P.M. “Alerted microglia and the sympathetic nervous system: A novel form of microglia in the development of hypertension.” 2016, Respiratory Physiology and Neurobiology, Vol 226 (51-62), doi: 10.1016/j.resp.2015.11.015.

• Iyengar AJ, Celermajer DS, Winlaw DS, D’Udekem Y. “Young and Free: Over 25 Years of Seminal Contributions to Complex Congenital Heart Disease From Australia & New Zealand.” 2016 Heart Lung and Circulation.

• Kapoor K, Bhandare AM, Mohammed S, Farnham MMJ, Pilowsky PM. “Microglial number is related to the number of tyrosine hydroxylase neurons in SHR and normotensive rats.” 2016. Autonomic Neuroscience: Basic and Clinical, doi: 10.1016/j.autneu.2016.05.005.

• Iyengar AJ, Winlaw DS, Galati JC, Wheaton GR, Gentles TL, Grigg LE, Justo RN, Radford DJ, Attard C, Weintraub RG, Bullock A, Sholler GS, Celermajer DS, d’Udekem Y. “No difference between aspirin and warfarin after extracardiac Fontan in a propensity score analysis of 475 patients.”

2016 Eur J Cardio-Thorac.

• Jongberg, S., Lund, M.N., Pattison, D.I., Skibsted, L.H., Davies, M.J. “Competitive kinetics as a tool to determine rate constants for reduction of ferrylmyoglobin by food components.” 2016, Food Chemistry, 199, 36-41.

• K apoor, K., Bhandare, A.M., Nedoboy, P.E., Mohammed, S., Farnham, M.M.J., Pilowsky, P.M. “Dynamic changes in the relationship of microglia to cardiovascular neurons in response to increases and decreases in blood pressure.” 2016, Neuroscience, Vol 329 (1229) doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2016.04.044.

• Karimi, M., Ignasiak, M., Chan, B., Croft, A., Radom, L., Schiesser, C. H., Pattison, D. I., Davies, M. J. “Reactivity of disulfide bonds is markedly affected by structure and environment: implications for protein modification and stability.” 2016. Scientific Reports, 6, 38572.

• Kizirian NV, Kong Y, Muirhead R, Brodie S, Garnett SP, Petocz P, Sim KA, Celermajer DS, Louie JC, Markovic TP et al. “Effects of a low-glycemic index diet during pregnancy on offspring growth, body composition, and vascular health: a pilot randomized controlled trial.” 2016. Am J Clin Nutr.

• Krishnan A, Drak D, Bao S, Celermajer DS, Liu J, “A model of early transient pressure overload simulating repair of aortic coarctation in childhood.” 2016 The Journal of Thoratic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

• K utty S, Rathod RH, Danford DFA, Celermajer DS, “Role of imaging in the evaluation of single ventricle with the Fontan palliation.” 2016, Heart.

• Lam, YT “Critical roles of reactive oxygen species in age-related impairment in ischemia-induced neovascularization by regulating stem and progenitor cell function.”

2016 Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity doi: 101155/2016/7095901.

• L am, YT, Lecce, L, Clayton, Z, Simpson, PJL, Karas, RH, Ng, MKC “Aging impairs ischemia-induced neovascularization by attenuating the mobilization of bone marrow-derived angiogenic cells” 2016, IJC Metabolic and Endocrine 12: 19-29 doi: 101016/jijcme201605005.

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PUBLICATIONS

• L arsson P, Alwis I, Niego B, Sashindranath M, Fogelstrand P, Wu MC, Glise L, Magnusson M, Daglas M, Bergh N, Jackson SP, Medcalf RL, Jern S. “Valproic acid selectively increases vascular endothelial tissue-type plasminogen activator production and reduces thrombus formation in the mouse.” 2016, Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

• Lau EM, Chemla D, Godinas L, Zhu K, Sitbon O, Savale L, Montani D, Jais X, Celermajer DS, Simonneau G, Humbert M, Herve P. “Loss of Vascular Distensibility During Exercise Is an Early Hemodynamic Marker of Pulmonary Vascular Disease.”

2016 Chest.

• Lau EM, Godinas L, Sitbon O, Montani D, Savale L, Jais X, Lador F, Gunther S, Celermajer DS, Simonneau G, Humbert M, Chemla D, Herve P. “Resting pulmonary artery pressure of 21-24 mmHg predicts abnormal exercise haemodynamics.” 2016 European Respiratory Journal.

• Lawley CM, Broadhouse KM, Callaghan FM, Winlaw DS, Figtree GA, Grieve SM: 4D flow magnetic resonance imaging: role in pediatric congenital heart disease. Asian Cardiovasc Thorac Ann 2017:218492317694248.

• Lei Cao, Stuart L Graham, Paul M. Pilowsky. “Carbohydrate ingestion induces sex-specific cardiac vagal inhibition, but not vascular sympathetic modulation, in healthy older women.” 2016, The American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology • Lok HC, Sahni S, Jansson PJ, Kovacevic Z, Hawkins CL, Richardson DR, “A nitric oxide storage and transport system that protects activated macrophages from endogenous nitric oxide cytotoxicity.”, Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2016.

• Love DT, Barrett TJ, White MY, Cordwell SJ, Davies MJ, Hawkins CL “Cellular targets of the myeloperoxidase-derived oxidant hypothiocyanous acid (HOSCN) and its role in the inhibition of glycolysis in macrophages” Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 2016.

• M ajima, HJ, Indo, HP, Nakanishi, I, Suenaga, S, Matsumoto, K-I, Matsui, H, Minamiyama, Y, Ichikawa, H, Yen, H-C, Hawkins CL, et al, “Chasing great paths of Helmut Sies: Oxidative Stress” Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics, 2016.

• Makris, A, Yeung, KR, Lim, SM, Sunderland, N, Heffernan, S, Thompson, JF, Iliopoulos, J, Killingsworth, MC, Yong, J, Xu, B, Ogle, RF, Thadhani, R, Karumanchi, SA, Hennessy, A “Placental growth factor reduces blood pressure in a uteroplacental ischemia model of preeclampsia in nonhuman primates.” 2016 Hypertension 67: 1263-1272 doi: 101161/ HYPERTENSIONAHA11607286.

• Martinez GJ, Barraclough JY, Nakhla S, Kienzle V, Robertson S, Mallat Z, et al.

“Neutrophil-derived microparticles are released into the coronary circulation following percutaneous coronary intervention in acute coronary syndrome patients.”

Bioscience reports. 2017;37(1).

• Robertson S, Martinez GJ, Payet CA, Barraclough JY, Celermajer DS, Bursill C, Patel S. “Colchicine Therapy in Acute Coronary Syndrome Patients acts on Caspase-1 to Suppress NLRP3 Inflammasome Monocyte Activation.” 2016 Clinical Science.

• Morris, GP, Wright, AL, Tan, RP, Gladbach, A, Ittner, LM, Vissel, B, “A comparative study of variables influencing ischemic injury in the longa and koizumi methods of intraluminal filament middle cerebral artery occlusion in mice.” 2016, PLoS ONE 11 doi: 101371/ journalpone0148503.

• Samson AL, Ho B, Au AE, Schoenwaelder SM, Smyth MJ, Bottomley SP, Kleifeld O, Medcalf RL, “Physicochemical properties that control protein aggregation also determine whether a protein is retained or released from necrotic cells.” 2016, Open Biology.

• N edoboy, PE, Mohammed, S, Kapoor, K, Bhandare, AM, Farnham, MMJ, Pilowsky, PM, “PSer40 tyrosine hydroxylase immunohistochemistry identifies the anatomical location of C1 neurons in rat RVLM that are activated by hypotension.”

2016, Neuroscience 317: 162-172 doi: 101016/ jneuroscience201601012.

• Santos, M, Filipe, EC, Michael, PL, Hung, J, Wise, SG, Bilek, MMM, “Mechanically Robust Plasma-Activated Interfaces Optimized for Vascular Stent Applications” 2016 ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces 8: 96359650 doi: 101021/acsami6b01279.

• S eneviratne, MG, Grieve, SM, Figtree, GA, Garsia, R, Celermajer, DS, Adelstein, S, Puranik, R, “Prevalence, distribution and • Ngo D, Sinha S, Shen D, Kuhn E, Keyes M, clinical correlates of myocardial fibrosis in Shi X, Benson M, O’Sullivan JF, Keshishian systemic lupus erythematosus: A cardiac H, Farrell L. “Aptamer-based proteomic magnetic resonance study.” 2016 Lupus 25: profiling reveals novel candidate biomarkers of 573-581 doi: 101177/0961203315622275. cardiovascular disease.” 2016 Circulation.

Sheriff, M.J., Mouline, O., Hsu, C., Wilson, • O ffen S, Jackson D, Canniffe C, Choudhary P, • M.K., Bannon, P.G., Vallely, M.P., Puranik, Celermajer DS. “Dextrocardia in Adults with R. “Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging Congenital Heart Disease.” 2016 Heart Lung Predictors of Short-Term Outcomes after and Circulation.

High Risk Coronary Surgery.” 2016 Heart • Pilowsky PM. Forward. 2016 Respiratory Lung and Circulation.

Physiology & Neurobiology.

• Shi H, O’Reilly VC, Moreau JL, Bewes • Poh CL, Cochrane A, Galati JC, Bullock TR, Yam MX, Chapman BE, Grieve SM, A, Celermajer DS, Gentles T, du Plessis Stocker R, Graham RM, Chapman G et al: K, Winlaw DS, Hornung T, Finucane K, Gestational stress induces the unfolded d’Udekem Y. “Ten-year outcomes of Fontan protein response, resulting in heart defects. conversion in Australia and New Zealand Development 2016, 143(14):2561-2572. demonstrate the superiority of a strategy of • Skilton, MR, Nakhla, S, Ayer, JG, Harmer, early conversiondagger.” 2016 Eur J CardioJA, Toelle, BG, Leeder, SR, Jones, G, Marks, Thorac GB, Celermajer, DS, “Telomere length • O’Neilla ES, Kolanowskia JL, Yina GH, in early childhood: Early life risk factors Broadhouse cd KM, Grieve bcd SM, Renfrewa and association with carotid intima-media AK, Bonnitchab PD, NewEJ, “Reversible thickness in later childhood.” 2016 European magnetogenic cobalt complexes.” 2016 RSC Journal of Preventive Cardiology 23: 1086Advance2016s.

1092 doi: 101177/2047487315607075.

• O ’Sullivan JF, Neylon A, McGorrian C, Blake • Schoenwaelder SM, Darbousset R, G. “miR-93-5p and other miRNAs as Predictors Cranmer SL, Ramshaw HS, Orive SL, of Stable Coronary Artery Disease and STEMI” Sturgeon S, Yuan Y, Yao Y, Krycer JR, 2016 International Journal of Cardiology.

Woodcock J. (2016) “14-3-3ζ regulates the mitochondrial respiratory reserve • Puranik, R, Bao, S, Bonin, AM, Kaur, R, Weder, linked to platelet phosphatidylserine JE, Casbolt, L, Hambley, TW, Lay, PA, Barter, exposure and procoagulant function”. Nature PJ, Rye, K-A “A novel class of copper(II)- and Communications 7, Article number: 12862, zinc(II)-bound non-steroidal anti-inflammatory doi:10.1038/ncomms12862. drugs that inhibits acute inflammation in vivo.”

2016, Cell and Bioscience 6: 1-9 doi: 101186/ s13578-016-0076-8.

• Ridiandries A, Tan JTM, Bursill CA. (2016) “The role of CC-chemokines in the regulation of angiogenesis.” International Journal of Molecular Sciences 17:1856.

• S tevens MC, Callaghan FM, Forrest P, Bannon PG, Grieve SM: Flow mixing during peripheral veno-arterial extra corporeal membrane oxygenation - A simulation study.

J Biomech 2017, 55:64-70.

063

Publications

• Szabo R, Samson AL, Lawrence DA, Medcalf RL and Bugge RH. “Passenger mutations and aberrant gene expression in congenic tissue plasminogen activatordeficient mouse strains.” 2016 Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

• T alib, J., Davies, M.J. “Exposure of aconitase to smoking-related oxidants results in iron loss and increased iron response protein-1 activity: potential mechanisms for iron accumulation in human arterial cells.” 2016, Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry, 21, 305-317.

• Tan J.M, Prosser HC, Dunn LL, Vanags LZ, Ridiandries A, Tsatralis T, Leece L, Clayton ZE, Yuen SC, Robertson S, Lam YT, Celermajer DS, Ng MK, Bursill CA. “High-Density Lipoproteins Rescue Diabetes-Impaired Angiogenesis via Scavenger Receptor Class B Type I.” Diabetes 2016;65:3091-3103 (Editorialised).

• Thornton, C., Tooher, J., Ogle, R., von Dadelszen, P., Makris, A., Hennessy, A. “Benchmarking the Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy.” 2016 Pregnancy Hypertension-An International Journal of Womens Cardiovascular Health.

• T ooher, J., Thornton, C., Makris, A., Ogle, R., Korda, A., Horvath, J. and Hennessy, A. “Hypertension in pregnancy and long term cardiovascular mortality: a retrospective cohort study.” 2016 American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

• Tsatralis T, Ridiandries A, Robertson S, Vanags LZ, Lam YT, Tan JTM, Ng MKC, Bursill CA. (2016) “Reconstituted highdensity lipoproteins promote wound repair and blood flow recovery in response to ischemia in aged mice.” Lipids in Health and Disease.

• Tweeddale H, Hawkins CL, Jamie JF, Truscott RJW, Davies MJ “Cross-linking of lens crystallin proteins induced by tryptophan metabolites and metal ions: implications for cataract development.”

2016, Free Radical Research, 50, 1116-1130.

“

• Van der Vorst E, Theodorou K, Wu Y, Hoeksema MA, Goossens P, Bursill CA, Aliyev T, Huitema L, Tas SW, Wolfs IMJ et al. (2016) “High Density Lipoproteins exert pro-inflammatory effects on macrophages via passive cholesterol depletion and PKC-dependent NF-κB/STAT1 activation.

Accepted Cell Metabolism on the 4th of October.”

• Warren CR, O’Sullivan JF, Friesen M, Becker CE, Zhang X, Wakabayashi Y, Morningstar JE, Shi X, Choi J, Xia F et al. “Humanity in a Dish: Uncovering the Common Genetic Basis for Human Metabolic Disease with IPSCs.” 2016 Cell Stem Cell.

• W ilson TG, Iyengar AJ, Winlaw DS, Weintraub RG, Wheaton GR, Gentles TL, Ayer J, Grigg LE, Justo RN, Radford DJ, Bullock A, Celermajer DS, Dalziel K, Schilling C, d’Udekem Y. “Use of ACE inhibitors in Fontan: Rational or irrational?” 2016 International Journal of Cardiology•.

• Wise, S.G., Liu, H., Kondyurin, A., Byrom, M.J., Bannon, P.G., Edwards, G.A., Weiss, A.S., Bao, S. and Bilek M.M.M. “Crosslinking of lens crystallin proteins induced by tryptophan metabolites and metal ions: implications for cataract development,” 2016 Free Radical Biology and Medicine.

• Yeung, K., Chiu, C., Pidsley, R., Makris, A., Hennessy, A. and Lind, J “DNA methylation profiles in preeclampsia and healthy control placentas.” 2016 American Journal of Physiology, Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

• Y u T, Korgaonkar MS, Grieve SM: Gray Matter Atrophy in the Cerebellum-Evidence of Increased Vulnerability of the Crus and Vermis with Advancing Age. Cerebellum (London, England) 2017, 16(2):388-397.

• Zheng Z, Pinson J, Mountford SJ, Orive S, Schoenwaelder SM, Shackleford D, Powell A, Nelson EM, Hamilton JR, Jackson SP, Jennings IG and Thompson PE. “Discovery and antiplatelet activity of a selective PI3Kbeta inhibitor (MIPS-9922).” 2016, The European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

• Zukor K, Wang H, Hurst BL, Siddharthan V, Van Wettere A, Pilowsky PM, Morrey JD “Phrenic nerve deficits and neurological immunopathology associated with acute West Nile virus infection in mice and hamsters.” 2016. The Journal of NeuroVirology.

• Wise, SG, Liu, H, Yeo, GC, Michael, PL, Chan, AHP, Ngo, AKY, Bilek, MMM, Bao, S, Weiss, AS “Blended Polyurethane and Tropoelastin as a Novel Class of Biologically Interactive Elastomer” 2016 Tissue Engineering - Part A 22 5-Jun: 524-533 doi: 101089/tentea20150409.

• Yeo, GC, Santos, M, Kondyurin, A, Liskova, J, Weiss, AS, Bilek, MMM “Plasma-Activated Tropoelastin Functionalization of Zirconium for Improved Bone Cell Response.” 2016 ACS Biomaterial Science and Engineering 2: 662676 doi: 101021/acsbiomaterials6b00049.

• Yeung, K., Chiu, C., Pears, S., Heffernan, S., Makris, A., Hennessy, A. and Lind, J. “A cross-sectional study of ageing and cardiovascular function over the baboon lifespan.” 2016 PLoS One.

Submitting scientific research for publishing is a key way for authors to validate their work, and in the wider scheme of things to create novel solutions to complex problems through dialogue with fellow researchers.

”

06 4

H e a r t R e s e a r c h I n s t i t u t e 2 0 16

BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Chaired by Dr Stephen Hollings, the board comprises nominees from The Sydney Local Health District, the Deans of Medical Schools and The University of Sydney, leading corporate executives, together with the Director of Cardiovascular Research of the Heart Research Institute. The majority of the board positions are available to be filled via election by the members of the incorporated company, The Heart Research Institute Ltd.

Dr Stephen Hollings

Professor Shaun Jackson

BA (HONs) PHD FAICD

MBBS BMEDSCI PHD

Dr Stephen Hollings is Chairman of the Heart Research Institute. He consults to companies on strategy, particularly with regard to digital opportunities and challenges.

He has worked closely with an organisation developing software to allow those people living with disabilities to participate more fully in the digital age, as well as with other digital start-ups. Currently he is also deputy Chair of the Global Access Partners’ National Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment. He is a senior executive and non-executive director with extensive experience in highly competitive, customer-driven industries and has successfully led businesses through periods of growth and development as well as through times of unprecedented change created by economic turbulence, industry restructuring and disruptive technology.

In his various Chair, CEO and senior executive roles he has become known for providing a strong focus on and a personal commitment to the development of emerging leaders, providing organisations with a robust talent pipeline.

He has played a key role as an executive coach and mentor for over 15 years.

Previously, Stephen was Director of Sales Strategy at NewsCorp Australia, Chairman of the Audited Media Association of Australia and of CareerOne. com.au and a Director of the Community Newspaper Group. He has a PhD in history from the University of Sydney, is a Foundation Fellow of the Institute of Company Directors and an Honorary Life Fellow of the International Marketing Institute of Australia.

Professor Shaun Jackson is an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow (SPRF) and faculty member at the prestigious Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, San Diego (CA,USA).

Shaun was a co-founder of the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases in Melbourne and a founder of Kinacia, an Australian biotechnology company developing novel diagnostic and therapeutic products aimed at preventing blood clotting. He is currently Director of Cardiovascular Research at the Heart Research Institute and Charles Perkins Centre, as well as Research Director of Atherothrombosis Services within the Department of Cardiology at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA). Professor Jackson’s research interests are focussed in the area of atherothrombosis and cardiovascular disease. Shaun established his independent research laboratory in the Monash Department of Medicine at Box Hill Hospital (1998-2003). In 2004 he moved to the Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct (AMREP), where he co-founded and became Research Director of the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD).

065

Board of Governors

Dr Stephen Hollings BA (HONS) PHD FAICD

Dr Teresa Anderson BAPPSC PHD

Mr John Batistich BBUS MMGT GAICD

Mr Barry Brownjohn BCOMM

Professor Josette Eris MBBS PHD FRACP (DECEASED)

Professor Shaun Jackson MBBS BMEDSCI PHD

Professor Wendy Jessup BSC PHD

Professor Leonard Kritharides MBBS PHD FRACP FCSANZ FAHA

Ms Cath Rogers BCOM, MBA, CFA, GAICD

Professor Stephen Simpson AC FAA FRS

06 6

H e a r t R e s e a r c h I n s t i t u t e 2 0 16

BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Dr Teresa Anderson BAPPSC PHD

Teresa Anderson is Chief Executive of the Sydney Local Health District (SLHD) and is responsible for the strategic and operational management of SLHD. SLHD has the following services and hospitals: Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, (Australia’s premier quaternary and tertiary hospital), Concord Hospital (a leading tertiary hospital), Canterbury and Balmain Hospitals, Sydney Dental Hospital, Community Health, Mental Health, Drug Health and Population Health services.

Board appointments include IPAA NSW Council, Centenary Institute, Ingham Health Research Institute, Heart Research Institute, Central and Eastern Sydney PHN (primary health network), ANZAC Research Institute, Australian Institute of Health Service Management, Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity and HealthShare NSW (MoH).

Mr Barry Brownjohn BCOMM

Barry Brownjohn is an experienced banking and finance executive with skill sets including capital markets, risk management, corporate advisory and business planning. Senior executive roles have included capital markets and investment banking businesses in Asia,

North America and in Australia serving as Managing Director of Bank of America.

Utilising his deep industry experience and understanding of the use of technology in financial services he has served as an advisor to incumbent industry participants and new businesses seeking to bring innovative business models and enabling technologies to the market. Nonexecutive Director roles have included for Citigroup Pty Ltd, Dexus Property Group, Bakers Delight Holdings Pty Limited and The South Australian Financing Authority. Barry has a Bachelor degree in Accounting Finance and Systems from the University of New South Wales.

Mr John Batistich BBUS MMGT GAICD

John Batistich is an Advisor to a range ofTechnology Start-Ups and has more than 24 years of experience in research, marketing, digital innovation and general management with blue chip companies.

Marketing communications led by John have won a Cannes Lion Award and an Australian Advertising Effectiveness Award. He has been a member of the Australian Market and Social Research Society Client Advisory Board and the Australian Research Awards judging panel. John holds a Masters in Management degree from Macquarie Graduate School of Management majoring in Human Resources, a Bachelor of Business degree from the University of Western Sydney majoring in Marketing and a Certificate in Digital Marketing from the Association for Datadriven Marketing and Advertising.

Professor Josette Eris MBBS PHD FRACP (DECEASED)

Josette Eris graduated from The University of Sydney with first-class honours and undertook nephrology training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH). She became a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians (RACP) in 1989. She then undertook research in the field of basic immunology culminating in a PhD from Sydney University. Josette was appointed to staff in the renal department of the Central Area Health Services in 1994 as Director of Renal Transplantation Services. In 2003, she was appointed Director of Renal Services for Statewide Renal Services at the Central Sydney Area Health Service — one of the largest renal units in Australia. Her current research interests include the markers and pathogenesis of chronic allograft nephropathy and the development of anti-rejection modalities and access equity for transplantation.

Josette is the immediate past President of the Transplant Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ). She has previously been Chair of the Dialysis, Nephrology and Transplantation Committee and is a past Chair of the NSW Transplant Advisory Committee.

Sadly Josette passed away in 2016.

Josette is greatly missed by HRI staff, board, colleagues and the greater scientific community.

067

Board of Governors

Professor Wendy Jessup BSC PHD

Wendy Jessup completed her tertiary scientific training at the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield in the United Kingdom. She moved to Australia in 1989 to take up a position at the Heart Research Institute. She was promoted to leader of the Cell Biology Group in 1994, later also becoming Deputy-Director until shortly before her departure in 2002.

Until the end of 2012 she was a Principal Research Fellow at the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and a Professor and Principal Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, where she co-led the Macrophage Biology Group at the Centre for Vascular Research. She is now a Principal Research Fellow in the Atherosclerosis Laboratory at the ANZAC Research Institute.

and in the USA, he took up an appointment as Staff Specialist in Cardiology at Concord Hospital in 1998 and became Head of Department in 2003. He was awarded a NSW Government Community Services Award for his contribution to Concord Repatriation General Hospital by the Premier Morris Iemma in 2006, the President’s Medal for contributions to the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand in 2013, and Distinguished Researcher Award by the Australian Vascular Biology Society in 2014. He is currently Chair of the Cardiovascular Health and Advisory Committee of the National Heart Foundation and Chairs the Specialist Training Committee in Cardiology of the Royal Australian College of Physicians.

Ms Cath Rogers BCOM MBA CFA GAICD

Cath Rogers has held several global finance and technology focused roles including with a successful software venture in London, Accenture strategy consulting in Sydney, ABN AMRO corporate finance in Sydney, and Credit Suisse investment banking in Sydney, New York and Latin America. Cath has also

Professor Leonard Kritharides MBBS PHD FRACP FCSANZ FAHA

worked with the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group in Washington DC, Masdar Capital,

Len Kritharides is Head of Department

a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi,

and Director of Cardiology at Concord

Anchorage Capital Partners in Sydney

Repatriation General Hospital (CRGH)

and AirTree Ventures, a Sydney-based

Sydney, Professor of Medicine at The

venture capital fund focused on digital

University of Sydney, Head of the

and software investments. Cath is the

Atherosclerosis Research Laboratory

co-founder of a technology venture called

Group at the ANZAC Research Institute

the Digital Receipt Exchange. In addition to

and Deputy Clinical Director of the

the HRI, Cath is a Non Executive Director

Cardiovascular Stream of the Sydney

of ASX Listed McGrath Real Estate and not

Local Health District. He completed his

for profit Heads Over Heels which supports

undergraduate degree at the University

women entrepreneurs. Cath holds a

of Melbourne, his postgraduate physician

Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Finance

training in Cardiology at the Royal

from the University of New South Wales

Melbourne Hospital and in 1994 he

and Master of Business Administration

completed a PhD in macrophage biology

from INSEAD in France. She is a Chartered

at the Heart Research Institute (HRI).

Financial Analyst and a Graduate of the

After postdoctoral research at the HRI

Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Professor Stephen Simpson AC FAA FRS

Stephen Simpson is Academic Director of the Charles Perkins Centre, a University of Sydney cross-faculty initiative aimed at researching and implementing crossdisciplinary approaches to alleviating the burden of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and related conditions, and is the Executive Director of Obesity Australia.

Stephen was born in Melbourne and grew up in Australia. After completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Queensland, he undertook his PhD at the University of London. Stephen spent 22 years at the University of Oxford, first in Experimental Psychology, then in the Department of Zoology and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, before returning to Australia in 2005 as an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, then ARC Laureate Fellow. Stephen, with close colleague David Raubenheimer, developed an integrative modelling framework for nutrition (the Geometric Framework), which was devised and tested using insects. This has since been applied to a wide range of organisms, from slime moulds to humans, and problems, from aquaculture and conservation biology to the dietary causes of human obesity and ageing. He has also revolutionised understanding of swarming in locusts, with research spanning neurochemical events within the brains of individual locusts to continental-scale mass migration. In 2007 Stephen was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, in 2013 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London as “one of the world’s foremost entomologists and nutritional biologists”, and in 2015 was made a Companion of the Order of Australia “for eminent service to biological and biomedical science.”

06 8

H e a r t R e s e a r c h I n s t i t u t e 2 0 16

INTERNATIONAL BOARD

Mr Tony Pollitt BECON MBA FCA (CHAIRMAN)

Tony Pollitt is the General Manager – Business Affairs, Content and Networks at Foxtel, the Australian subscription television network. Tony qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1989 and transferred to London and Prague for three years before returning to work in Sydney. During this period, he specialised in the telecommunications sector.

In 1995, Tony joined Showtime as the Finance Manager. Tony’s role expanded and in 1998 he was the Chief Operating Officer, responsible for the finance and

portfolio of products. Elena is a marketing professional with more than 10 years’ experience in the FMCG, consumer goods and healthcare industries. Her previous roles have included Marketing Manager at Johnson & Johnson responsible for the Women’s Health portfolio, as well as with GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare where Elena worked for seven years developing award-winning marketing

Kerry Cunningham

campaigns for products such as Nicabate,

Kerry Cunningham is the Director of Retail Operations for Blackmores Ltd, Australia’s number 1 vitamin & dietary supplement company in the ASX 100. Kerry has over 20 years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical and Health Industry working in Australia, New Zealand and Thailand. Kerry has had an extensive career at Blackmores in senior leadership positions driving the change agenda. Additionally she has held board positions with Complementary Medicines Australia and Chaired the Marketing & Communications Committee. Her extensive experience in Pharmacy saw her appointed to the Advisory Board of UTS Faculty of Pharmacy.

Panadol, Sensodyne, Cartia and Zovirax.

Elena holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales, majoring in Marketing and International Business.

internal operations within Showtime.

At Foxtel, Tony works in the team that negotiates and acquires the content for the Foxtel channels.

Mr John Batistich BBUS MMGT GAICD

John Batistich is an Advisor to a range of Technology Start-Ups and has more

Mr Matthew Dobbin

than 24 years of experience in research,

BBUS MA (APPL) EXEC LEADERSHIP

marketing, digital innovation and general

(INSEAD)

management with blue chip companies.

Matt Dobbin is a Consulting Partner

Marketing communications led by John

at PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia.

have won a Cannes Lion Award and an

Matt has over 20 years’ international

Australian Advertising Effectiveness

consulting experience with a focus

Award. He has been a member of the

on corporate strategy and driving

Australian Market and Social Research

business improvement initiatives across

Society Client Advisory Board and the

a range of organisations. His specific

Australian Research Awards judging panel.

areas of expertise include strategy

John holds a Masters in Management

implementation, business process re-

degree from Macquarie Graduate School

engineering, business integration and

of Management majoring in Human

major change management. He has

Resources, a Bachelor of Business degree

had extensive international experience

from the University of Western Sydney

working with major clients in the USA,

majoring in Marketing and a Certificate in

Middle East, Europe, Asia and New

Digital Marketing from the Association for

Zealand. Matt has been involved in a

Datadriven Marketing and Advertising.

broad range of industries driving strategy implementation including health, logistics, construction, utilities, public sector and

Mr Stephen Moodey

retail. Of particular interest he has worked

BBUS MBA CPA

with a number of medical research

Stephen Moodey is the Area Finance

institutes throughout his career.

Director for GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Australia and New Zealand and

Mrs Elena Pintado BCOM

(Executive) from the Australian Graduate School of Management, is a member of the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants and holds a Bachelor of Business degree from the University of Technology, Sydney majoring in Accounting and Finance.

provides decision support to the division’s General Manager across strategic, financial and operational dimensions. He

Elena Pintado is Head of Marketing

has more than 16 years’ experience as a

Activation for Sunbeam, a leading brand

financial professional in the delivery of

within the small domestic appliances

financial processes, reporting, analytics

category, where she is responsible for

and business partnering, forecasting

the strategy, development and execution

and budget development. Stephen holds

of all communications for the Sunbeam

a Masters in Business Administration

069

MEMBERS OF THE INSTITUTE

▪ MEMBERS OF THE INSTITUTE Prof David Allen

Mr Rod Halstead

Prof Judith Ann Whitworth

LLB LLM

Mr Richard Wylie

Prof Phil Harris

MBBS PHD FAA

AM BSC MBBS DPHIL PRACP FACC

Dr Teresa Anderson

Dr Stephen Hollings

B.APP SC PHD

BA (HONS) PHD FAICD

Dr Brian Bailey

Dr Philip Hoyle

MBBS FRACP FACC

Prof Shaun Jackson

Dr Ian Bailey

MBBS PHD FRACP

MBBS FRACP FACC

Mr Keith L Jennings

Mr James Bain

Dr Richard Jeremy

AM

Mrs Phillippa Baird Prof Philip Barter MBBS PHD FRACP

Mr John Batistich BBUS MMGT GAICD

Marcus C Blackmore AM

Mr Len Bleasel AM

Mr Barry Brownjohn BCOMM

Dr Timothy Cartmill Prof Colin Chesterman Dr Donald S Child AM (DECEASED)

Prof Wendy Jessup BSC PHD

Ms Maggie Johns Mr Peter Jollie AM

Prof Geoffrey Kellerman Prof David Kelly AM

Prof Len Kritharides PHD FRACP FCSANZ FAHA

Mr Chris Last CBE OBE

Ms Joann Lewis BCOM ACA FELLOW FINSIA

Mr A W Coates

AO

AO (DECEASED)

Mr Robert Miller

Mrs Giselle Collins

Dr Lynne Pressley

Mr John C Conde AO

Mr James Creer Prof Michael Davies BSC DPHIL CCHEM FRACI

Mr Craig Davison

Dr John G Richards Assoc Professor David Richmond AM MB CHB MSC FRACP FRCP PACC

Ms Cath Rogers BCOM MBA CFA GAICD

Ms Mary Salteri-Shaw Dr Laurie A Scandrett

MMGT GDIP MKTING GAICD

Mr Albert Scheinberg

Prof Roger Dean

Dr B Scott

MA PHD DSC FIBIOL

Dr R Dunn MBBS FRACP FACC

Prof Josette Eris PHD FRACP MBBS (DECEASED)

Mr & Mrs John Fairfax

Professor Shaun Jackson MBBS BMEDSCI PHD

Professor Stephen Simpson AC FAA FRS

▪ PROFESSIONAL ADVISERS TO THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS Honorary Solicitor: Mr Rod Halstead LLB LLM (CLAYTON UTZ)

Head Auditor: Mr Cameron Roan (PARTNER KPMG)

▪ FOUNDING FELLOWS The following members have been recognised with the title of Founding Fellow for their exceptional roles in establishing The Heart Research Institute

Mr John Laws

Mr Frank Lowy

Dr Susan Conde

▪ CHANGES TO THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS

AO FRACP FRACPA FRAACB

Mr John Cloney

BEC CA GAICD

Dr J Yiannikas

AO

Mr Nicholas Shehadie

Professor Phillip J Harris BSC MBBS DPHIL FRACP FACC

Mr Ross A Hohnen AM OBE (DECEASED)

Associate Professor David R Richmond AM MB CHB MSC FRACP FRCP FACC

▪ HONOR ARY FELLOWS The following members have been recognised with the title of Honorary Fellows for their outstanding service to the HRI. All those who have received this award have made their outstanding contribution as voluntary Governors. The present Board of Governors is also indebted to them and their generous philanthropic gifts to the Institute.

Marcus C Blackmore AM

Prof Stephen Simpson

Mrs Giselle M Collins

Mr David Smithers

BEC CA GAICD

Prof Keith Stanley

Mr Chris A Hadley BA ASIA

AO

Dr Gregory Stewart

Prof P Fletcher

Prof Roland Stocker

MBBS PHD FRACP

Mr Tony Stuart

Mr & Mrs Michael Ford

BA COMM

Prof Ben Freedman

Mr R Utz

Mr AG (Geoff) G Lee

BSC (MED) MBBS PHD OAM

Mr Raymond Vaughan

AM OAM FAO (DECEASED)

Prof Carolyn Geczy

AO

Dr RW (Bruce) Reid

PHD

Ms Clare Walsh

AM KNO (DECEASED)

Mr Chris Hadley

Mr R F E Warburton

Dr Carlo Salteri

BA ASIA

Dr Thomas Wenkart

Prof Geoffrey M Kellerman AO FRACP FRACPA FRAACB

Mr Kevin J Kirby AO (DECEASED)

AC (DECEASED)

070

H e a r t R e s e a r c h I n s t i t u t e 2 0 16

FUNDRAISING REPORT

FUN D RAISIN G D IRECTOR

“

Richard Wylie Director, Global Fundraising and Brand

In my day-to-day dealings with our wonderful donors, I often hear how inspired they are by the work of our scientists and their commitment to undertake such a highly skilled, competitive and financially uncertain career.

I can only agree, because walking around our facilities and witnessing this dedication firsthand is truly inspirational.

To all of you who have given to help keep our scientists in the labs doing their vital work… you have all truly inspired us with your commitment and generosity.

”

07 1

Fu n d r a i s i n g R e p o r t

Inspiration flows both ways. When new scientists join the HRI they complete a series of inductions to assist them to work safely and effectively in a cutting-edge scientific environment such as ours.

We also invite them to attend a presentation that I give to introduce them to where the money to fund their science comes from. To give them a sense of scale around the support we receive from our donors worldwide, I ask them to imagine a major sporting stadium with a maximum capacity of around 65 000 people. I then ask them to imagine the stadium filled to capacity.

‘That’s the number of donors who on a monthly basis donate as part of our regular giving program… and that’s only one of our many programs worldwide’. I say.

To say that our new scientists are stunned by the scale of that support, is an understatement. They are visibly moved and tell me that it motivates them even more to get into the labs and work even harder to make the breakthroughs that will repay this faith in them and hopefully save many thousands of lives in the years ahead.

Your support of our scientists isn’t just generous, it’s inspiring! While I’m on this theme, let me share a story that highlights the generosity, commitment and creativity of our donors. In May we were approached by a young lady from Perth Western

Australia, named Larissa. She planned to enter a ‘Glamour Girl Beauty Contest’ and use the funds raised from her activities during the event to support the work of the HRI. When we asked her why she had chosen to support the HRI, she said it was because she had lost her mother to heart disease, and that she had endured open heart surgery herself, which had left her with significant (and confidence sapping) scarring on her chest. Participating in a beauty contest was a way for her to restore her confidence in her appearance, and to raise money for an organisation that might prevent deaths like her mother’s in future generations. Happily, I can report Larissa won the contest, and raised over $1200 for the HRI. There have been many other wonderfully inspiring examples of our donors’ generosity this year: • Those who have left us a gift in their Will.

• Some of the leading philanthropic foundations in Australia, including the Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Foundations and The Ian Potter Foundation, choosing to support innovative HRI projects and outstanding researchers.

• Blackmores’ 23rd consecutive year as headline sponsor of our major event ‘Illuminate’.

• The staff of Optiver, who, inspired by a colleague’s sudden and unexpected brush with heart disease, voted for HRI to receive the company’s Christmas donation of $20,000.

•

team inspired by the loss of a family A member completed a challenge to pedal a stationary bike from the Netherlands to the Dutch Caribbean, a total of 4,736 nautical miles raising amazing international awareness and vital funds for our research.

• Zorich Group in South Australia who supported the HRI around World Heart Day with proceeds from their ‘charity bags’.

• JJ Richards & Sons’ ongoing support for the HRI. The company has now donated a phenomenal $345,000 since 2010.

• The Bondi Lions Club who generously purchased another vital piece of scientific equipment for us in 2016.

• Our international supporters, who are helping us fund international collaborations and the support of the next generation of scientific talent.

• Our single and regular givers, our lottery and raffle players, our Hero of the Heart plush toy buyers, our Charity Housie players and clubs and our corporate partners.

Thank you.

Richard Wylie DIRECTOR, GLOBAL FUNDRAISING AND BRAND

072

H e a r t R e s e a r c h I n s t i t u t e 2 0 16

FUNDRAISING REPORT

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Professor Stephen Simpson, Professor Ben Freedman, Professor Shaun Jackson, Dame Marie Bashir, Professor Annemarie Hennessy.

Principal Sponsor: Blackmores Sponsors: Sydney Local Health District Unity 4 ▪ ILLUMI N ATE 2016 AWAR D W INN ERS The HRI Early-Career Researcher Award for Best Student Presentation: Dhanya Ravindran IMMUNOBIOLOGY GROUP

The HRI Early-Career Researcher Award for Best Student Paper: Miguel Santos APPLIED MATERIALS GROUP

The Unity-4 Early-Career Researcher Award for Best International Presentation: Richard Tan APPLIED MATERIALS GROUP

The HRI Early-Career Researcher Award for Best Post-doctoral Paper: Roxane Darbousset THROMBOSIS GROUP

The Sydney Local Health District Earlycareer Researcher Award for Translational Research Award: Joanne Tan IMMUNOBIOLOGY GROUP

Blackmores Mentor of the Year Award: Clare Hawkins INFLAMMATION GROUP

▪ IL LU M IN AT E 20 1 6 Illuminate, HRIs annual signature event, held on 4 November 2016, brought together leading scientists and international guests for an evening of scientific discovery, learning and celebration.

This evening of science and collaboration began with a public lecture, ‘You are only as old as your blood vessels: What you can do to reverse vascular ageing’ presented by Professor John Cooke of Houston Methodist Research Institute.

Illuminate 2016 then moved to the lawns of The Quadrangle at Sydney University where guests were treated to a scientifically themed art show and given a unique opportunity to personally meet HRIs talented scientists and award winners.

Guests and scientists alike were then invited into the iconic Great Hall of Sydney University where they were treated to a sumptuous heart healthy dinner specially curated by nutritionist Michele Chevalley.

The HRIs Early-Career Researcher Awards were then presented to talented scientists with exceptional achievement in 2016 and was followed by the presentation of the inaugural Mentor of the Year award.

This awards seeks to recognise a senior researcher who’s support and encouragement are fundamental to the success of young scientists.

Congratulations to all award recipients.

A key highlight of the night was keynote speaker Professor David Celermajer’s address which resonated deeply with guests as he spoke to the fact that we are living in an age where some of the largest global challenges we face from climate change to cardiovascular disease can be solved through science.

It is through the support of an evening like this that the Heart Research Institute is able to continue its vital work and we thank all those involved for their generosity and support in making Illuminate 2016 possible.

Special thanks must be given to Blackmores, our principle sponsor of the event for over two decades, without their commitment and support, the event could not be possible. A warm thank you also to sponsors, Sydney Local Health District and Unity 4 who’s continued support is deeply valued.

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Fu n d r a i s i n g R e p o r t

“

We are living in an age where some of the largest global challenges we face from climate change to cardiovascular disease can be solved through science.

▪ B E H I N D T H E S C E N ES L A B O RATO RY TO U RS We hosted a number of ‘Talk and Tours’ this year where HRI supporters came to our facility to experience the world of research up close. It’s important to us that the community gets to see our groundbreaking research in action research that is funded by our wonderful supporters.

Our ‘Talk and Tour’ gives people the opportunity to see the research up-close and personal. Our guests were able to hear about some of our research highlights and discoveries direct from our researchers before being guided through the laboratories by our senior scientists.

”

▪ HEARTS FOR E T E R NIT Y As part of our evolving bequest program, the HRI legacy club was renamed “Hearts for Eternity”. Hearts for Eternity members are people who have chosen to leave a gift in their Will to the HRI. Through this club, we seek to recognise the generosity of our supporters, by providing opportunities to tour our laboratories and see our research firsthand; and attend special functions to meet other Australians who share their vision of a future without heart disease.

A special thank you to Metal artist Ken Pearce for the creation of our Hearts for Eternity memorial sculpture. The sculpture portrays the heart and circulatory system, while also showing the interrelationship between all of us at the HRI. Each gift we receive will be dedicated with a special crafted heart with the benefactor’s name inscribed and added to the sculpture for posterity.

▪ C H AI RM A N ’ S B RU N C H Our annual Chairman’s Christmas Brunch, took place on 2 December 2016, and is the Heart Research Institute’s way of thanking our very special supporters for their generosity, in particular those who have chosen to leave a gift in their Will.

This celebratory occasion allows us to meet and thank our supporters in person and show them how their support is making a difference in the fight against cardiovascular disease.

This year we officially launched our Hearts for Eternity memorial sculpture. This artwork, which is now a permanent fixture here in the foyer of the HRI, is a tribute to the generosity of the many people who have left a gift in their Will to the HRI. The brunch was hosted at the Heart Research Institute, followed by a tour of the laboratories.

▪ C H A RI T Y H O U S I E The Heart Research Institute would like to thank all of the clubs and venues which offer their continuing support to ensure the success of the Charity Housie Program.

Each of the clubs involved in this program makes a valuable monetary contribution towards our overheads and without this support the program would not be possible.

In particular, we would like to extend our thanks to the management and staff of: Bankstown Trotting & Recreational Club • Cabramatta Leagues • Campbelltown RSL • Club Condell Park • Camden RSL, Club Rivers • Erina Rugby League Club • Ourimbah Lisarow RSL • Parramatta Leagues Raymond Terrace Bowling Club • Toukley RSL • Wests Ashfield.

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FUNDRAISING REPORT

▪ R AMACI OTTI HEALT H INV ESTMEN T GRAN T The Ramaciotti Foundation is one of the biggest and most prestigious philanthropic contributors to medical research in Australia, and in 2016 they awarded one of only five Health Investment Grants to HRI Group Leader, Dr Sanjay Patel. The $150,000 grant will allow Dr Patel to pursue his work developing colchicine, a widely available and cost-effective anti-inflammatory drug into a novel therapy to stop the progression of atherosclerosis before it leads to heart attack and stroke.

▪ WO R L D H E A RT DAY Thank you to Zorich Group, a South Australian sports retailer, and the Newtown and Broadway NAB branches who celebrated World Heart Day on 29th September with us by raising awareness of heart disease amongst their customers. Zorich Group sold their $1 charity bags in aid of HRI throughout September and encouraged customers to jump on an exercise bike in-store to get their heart rate up and help protect themselves against heart disease. NAB decked out their branches in HRI branding and invited HRI researchers in to engage with customers about their heart health and carry-out free blood pressure readings.

▪ I N T E RN AT I O N A L WO M E N ’ S DAY In March, influential women from across the business and science sectors gathered at the Heart Research Institute to celebrate International Women’s Day; shining a light on the contributions of women to their fields, and the barriers they still face. The event was hosted by ABC Science reporter, Sophie Scott, and included an impressive panel made up of: • Dr Cathy Foley, world-class physicist, Deputy Director and Science Director of CSIRO Manufacturing.

• Emeritus Professor Carolyn Geczy, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW. • Professor Caroline Homer, Director of the Centre for Midwifery, Child and Family Health, UTS. • Ms Giselle Collins, non-Executive Director for a portfolio of Boards.

Discussion ranged from the challenges facing women in science and how to change workplace culture, to the benefits of establishing a public profile and practical advice on mentoring and having an up-to-date CV. We also launched the inaugural Career Re-start Grant for a female researcher

▪ IA N POTTER FOUNDAT IO N SUP PORTS I N N OVAT IVE NE W TECH N OLOGY Thanks to a grant from The Ian Potter Foundation, the HRI purchased a 3D bio-printer, to enable Marcus Blackmore Fellow, Dr Carmine Gentile’s groundbreaking research into treatment for heart attack. Dr Gentile is printing human heart tissue with the ultimate aim to be able to graft this onto damaged hearts following an attack. His work, in collaboration with the Kolling Institute, was featured on ABC news and ABC’s “The Conversation Hour” in December.

returning to work after maternity leave, which was jointly funded by NAB and the HRI. ▪ C O R P O R AT E PA RT N E RS AT C H R IST M AS Thank you to Optiver and Calibre Business Advisory who both chose to support HRI this year with their Christmas donations. Optiver colleagues were given the opportunity to shortlist charities and then vote on three to win a $20,000 donation each. Optiver welcomed HRI researchers to talk to staff and demonstrate our science as part of a roadshow before voting to support us! Calibre colleagues generously made personal donations which the company then matched by a factor of 10.

▪ I N T E RN AT I O N A L G I V I N G Our international programs continue to perform very well, with 17,190 active regular givers across New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada and The Netherlands. The funds raised have helped establish local partnerships, training the next generation of cardiovascular researchers, along with supporting the everyday work of our scientific groups. Thank you, international supporters, for providing us with a regular and predictable income stream allowing us to keep developing our programs.

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Fu n d r a i s i n g R e p o r t

▪ MAJOR GI FTS

Mr G Kaudeer

We would like to thank the following

Mr I Palmer

philanthropists, companies, trusts and

Mr L Boyd

bequestors for their generous contributions to

Mr N Foun

the HRI’s work in 2016:

Mr R Lane

Anita Mckenzie

Mr R Wylie

Barry Timbrell

Mrs D McGregor

Blackmores Institute

Mrs E Van Der Knaap

Brain Foundation

Mrs J Glading

Calibre Business Advisory

Mrs J Gray

Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Foundations

Mrs M Sinclair

Diane Burger and the late Mr David Burger AM

Mrs N Graeme-Evans

Dr Max and Mrs Tess Hooper

Mrs S Anketell

East Family Trust

Mrs V Chick

Eclipse Environmental

Ms D Janes

Edwin Brackenreg

Anonymous (46)

M A RK E T I N G A N D C O M M U N I CAT I O N S STA F F Sarah Hawkesford MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

Emma Phillips MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS EXECUTIVE

Martha Tattersall* CONTENT MANAGER

*Left HRI throughout 2016

Eventide Homes NSW Ian Potter Foundation

▪ F U ND RA I S I N G STA F F

JJ Richards & Sons Pty

Richard Wylie

Joan Gray John Fairfax AO NAB

DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL FUNDRAISING AND BRAND

Louise Brockbank* DIRECT MARKETING PROGRAMS MANAGER

Narelle Greathead

(INTERNATIONAL)

Optiver

Katherine Burtt*

Peter and Barbara Hoadley Professor Robert Graham AO Russell Dann Sydney Local Health District Trevor Steel Unity4 Walter and Eileen Ralston Trust Zorich Group ▪ GI FT I N WI LLS R EC E IVE D 2 0 16 Estate of Allen A Shepherd Estate of James E Frewin Estate of Jessie Jones Estate of Lisa Katrina Bagrowski Estate of Mabel Theresa Anthony Estate of Mary Plambeck Estate of Owen Longfield Estate of Peter W V Dixon Estate of Robert Edward Gough Estate of Wilfred Raymond Smith

DIRECT MARKETING PROGRAM MANAGER INTERNATIONAL FUNDRAISING EXECUTIVE

Michael Farrugia INTERNATIONAL COMPLIANCE MANAGER

Siobhan Hanbury-Aggs DIRECT MARKETING MANAGER

Sharon Hodgson HEAD OF PHILANTHROPY

Caroline Lels DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

Alessandra Martines PARTNERSHIPS EXECUTIVE

Melanie Murphy REGULAR GIVING COORDINATOR

Larnie Narayan PHILANTHROPY EXECUTIVE

Nathan O’Brien BUSINESS ANALYST

Corina O’Grady* SUPPORTER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE

Pat Ordenes DIGITAL FUNDRAISING MANAGER

Anonymous (4)

John O’Shea

▪ HEARTS FOR E T E R NIT Y MEMBERS Miss D E Watt Miss H M Howie Miss M Blums Mr & Mrs F & J Pengelly Mr & Mrs R & L Hammonds Mr & Mrs R & M Kippax Mr & Mrs R & S Banham

Laura Petroccitto

PLEDGE PROGRAM MANAGER

Mr A Jenkins

▪ H OW TO G E T I N VO LV E D

Sharon Butt*

GIFTS IN WILLS OFFICER

Lisa Petroccitto SINGLE GIVING PROGRAM MANAGER

Rosemary Warwick

• Make a donation • Become a regular giver (for as little as $25 per month) • Remember The Heart Research Institute in your Will • Give a gift In Celebration or in memory of a loved one • Give tax-free through your salary with Workplace Giving • Run a marathon, ride a bike or swim and raise money for heart research • Harness the power of your business to support vital research as a corporate partner • Get up and close to the science – visit us for a Talk & Tour of the Institute • Purchase a specific item from our Wishlist at hri.org.au/wishlist • Like us on Facebook facebook.com/HRIAust • Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/HRIAust • Watch us on Youtube youtube.com/HRIAust

DONOR SERVICES COORDINATOR

Helena Yiu DATABASE AND TRANSACTIONS EXECUTIVE

Valentin Ziegler INTERNATIONAL FUNDRAISING PROGRAM MANAGER

*Left HRI throughout 2016

For more information visit us at www.hri.org.au, contact us on 1800 651 373.

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OPERATIONS REPORT

The purpose of the Operations Team at the Heart Research Institute is to provide first-class support to our scientists to ensure they have all of the equipment and services they require to drive their research themes forward with minimal distractions.

▪ FINANCE Income HRI derives its income mainly from fundraising, bequests and government grants in Australia and overseas. Our gross income for the year to December 2016 was $29.6 million, compared to $28.9 million in the prior year, an improvement of 2.42% or $0.66m.

This was mostly due to increases in grant income and bequests.

Expenditure 2016 was a year of consolidation after some major expenses in 2015. The Fundraising team continued with its strategy to diversify its income streams to ensure sustainable portfolio of programs in future years. We continued our investment program in IT to better support our scientific teams and fundraising efforts with up-to-date and reliable platforms. We maintained a similar level of staffing costs while streamlining our operational expenses.

Operating Result Income outstripped expenditure for the year to December 2016 and the Institute returned a $4.3 million nett profit, which will be invested in further scientific activity in coming years.

Asset Base and Cash Flow The Heart Research Institute has a strong balance sheet and a good asset base that will assist us to smooth any fluctuations in income in any single year and enable our scientific staff to have greater security of

tenure. The Institute has no debt and our researchers benefit from the Institute’s ownership of its $20 million primary research facility in Eliza Street, Newtown, Sydney.

Our cash flows remain healthy with $6.8 million generated from our operating activities of which $1.7 million was invested in both scientific equipment and information technology platforms, with the remaining surplus set aside for use in future years in medium term deposits. During 2016 we increased our investment funds to $9.4million which is being managed by JBWere. These funds sit alongside the existing Salteri Endowment of $3.0 million. These funds not only provide a healthy investment income for the Institute but additionally provide a pool of resources to continue the fight against cardiovascular disease in future years.

A copy of our full annual financial report is available from our website or by contacting the Heart Research Institute at support@hri.org.au ▪ HUMAN RESOURCES (HR) 2016 has been about ensuring best practice HR initiatives continue to be implemented following the appointment of a new Director, Human Resources in late 2015. Diversity has been a key focus with the establishment of a Diversity Council at HRI to ensure all our policies and practices are supportive of Diversity in the workplace. Another key initiative

was a program designed by HR and Fundraising to utilise New Zealand donor money by bringing out eight New Zealand undergraduate summer scholars to participate in an eight week program over the summer break. HRI remains committed to attracting and retaining top talent, and initiatives around reviewing scientific pay scales, learning and development opportunities and revised performance review frameworks are indicative of this commitment.

▪ I N F O R M AT I O N T E C H N O L O G Y 2016 was the year of making use of our new IT foundations. We were able to make meaningful differences to the productivity of HRI scientists, Fundraising and support staff through some key projects. Following extensive consultation with Scientists and staff at HRI, we have replaced our aging mixed fleet computers with easy to use modern laptops. We have also provided our scientists with specialised analysis machines to make it possible to conduct in-depth investigations of their experiments.

All HRI staff collaborate within HRI and other MRIs, Universities and a range of third parties. To support collaboration through virtual meetings, IT procured three ‘Microsoft Surface Hubs’ that provide a very cost effective upgrade to our meeting rooms.

The IT team also submitted their own bodies to science, by taking part in the ‘Cardiac MRI and the heart study’, conducted by Dr Kelly Stanton and Prof Stuart Grieve.

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Operations Repor t

▪ OPERATI ON S STAF F Christopher Last* CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

Vania Dauner EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

Andrew Leech GENERAL MANAGER COMMERCIALISATION

Brett Szmajda RESEARCH AND INNOVATION MANAGER

Elissa Dwyer DIRECTOR, HUMAN RESOURCES

Jo Lyons HUMAN RESOURCES ADVISOR

Sathy Sappany FINANCIAL CONTROLLER

Lei Hong FINANCIAL ACCOUNTANT

Jasmine Lam SENIOR ACCOUNTANT

Snezana Stojanovska ACCOUNTS PAYABLE OFFICER

Adam O’Halloran INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR

Goran Tkalcec IT ADMINISTRATOR

Tym Richardson BUILDING AND FACILITIES MANAGER

Matthew Nugent* INTERIM BUILDING AND FACILITIES MANAGER

*Left HRI throughout 2016

“

Our gross income for the year to December 2016 was $29.6 million, compared to $28.9 million in the prior year, an improvement of 2.42% or $0.66m.

”

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No matter what role you play, either within HRI or as an external collaborator or supporter, you are pivotal to the quest to reduce the number of people suffering from cardiovascular disease.

Thank you for supporting our scientist’s on their unique journey, and for helping scientific excellence to flourish.

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I T TA K E S A H E A R T O F G O L D T O EN D H E A R T D I S E A S E Please use this form to make your tax-deductible donation today. You can also donate online at hri.org.au or by calling 1800 651 373.

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Thank you Donations $2 and over are tax-deductible.

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