Speakers

International Keynote Speakers

Prof. Dr. Moorman began his research in the Laboratory of Biochemistry of the University of Amsterdam (1973) headed by Prof Piet Borst, and following a postdoctoral stage in Z?rich (1977), continued his career in the department he now heads, Anatomy & Embryology, part of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. His laboratory and team are renowned for the excellence of their computer-based 3-dimensional reconstructions. His recent research has focused on the molecular and anatomic delineation of the different atrial components. The models developed by his group to elucidate cardiac development have also served to provide a clearer understanding of congenital cardiac malformations and new concepts developed by other groups, such as the second heart field. In addition to his research, Dr. Moorman has integrated all basic and clinical groups working on the heart in the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam into the Heart Failure Research Center, of which he is general director. In 2006, he spearheaded the development of the FP6 integrated consortium called HeartRepair. He has also coordinated a second, more genetically oriented European project, called CHeartED based in Amsterdam, which aims to create a 3-D morpho-molecular developmental atlas of the mouse.

Nadia Rosenthal

Born in the US, Nadia Rosenthal obtained her PhD in 1981 from Harvard Medical School and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at NIH, then directed a biomedical research laboratory at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on developmental genetics of heart and skeletal muscle, the molecular biology of ageing, and the role of growth factors and stem cells in tissue regeneration. She edited the definitive text Heart Development with Richard Harvey and served for a decade at the New England Journal of Medicine as editor of the Molecular Medicine series. Since 2001 she has been Head of the EMBL Mouse Biology Unit in Rome and holds a Professorship of Cardiovascular Science at Imperial College London. She recently spearheaded the election of Australia to EMBL as its first Associate Member, was appointed Founding Director of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University, and holds an Australia Fellowship.

Professor David Celermajer is Scandrett Professor of Cardiology (University of Sydney), Director of Echocardiography and Clinical Academic Cardiologist (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital), Clinical Director and Group Leader (The Heart Research Institute) and Chairman of the Research Committee of the National Heart Foundation of Australia. Professor Celermajer graduated from Medicine at the University of Sydney in 1983 with First Class Honours and the University Medal, and also won a Rhodes scholarship in that year. He received a Ph.D. from the University of London in 1993. Among his many awards and prizes is the Commonwealth Health Minister's Award For Excellence In Health And Medical Research, in 2002. In 2006, Professor Celermajer was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Professor Celermajer's research interests lie in the area of early detection and prevention of heart disease.

Dr Chih graduated from the University of Western Australia. She completed her Basic Physican Training at Fremantle Hospital and Cardiology training at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth. Dr Chih is currently a Research Fellow at St Vincent's Hospital and enrolled in a PhD at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute investigating the use of G-CSF in chronic ischaemic heart disease.

Dr. Elefanty trained as a physician in medical oncology and completed a PhD in leukaemogenesis under the supervision of Prof. Suzanne Cory at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in 1992. In 1993 Dr. Elefanty took up a position at the National Institute for Medical Research in London in the laboratory of Prof. Frank Grosveld, studying the haematopoietic transcription factor, GATA-1. He returned to the Hall Institute in 1995 and in collaboration with Prof. Glenn Begley, generated ES cells and mice in which lacZ was targeted to the locus of the key haematopoietic transcription factor, SCL. The current laboratory of Dr. Elefanty, jointly headed with Dr. Ed Stanley since 2002, has maintained a focus on ESC differentiation along mesodermal (blood) and endodermal (pancreas) lineages. In 2002 the laboratory moved from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research to Monash University and has generated genetically modified human ESC lines in which fluorescent reporters have been introduced into key gene loci that allow the objective monitoring of in vitro differentiation of ESC in a logical, step-wise fashion.

Professor Anne Keogh (MBBS MD FRACP) is Joint Head of the Clinical Research Program at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and the Senior Cardiologist in Cardiac Transplantation. She completed her Medical Doctorate at the University of New South Wales on Clinical Aspects of Heart Transplantation in 1989. Dr Keogh was awarded a Fullbright Scholarship in 1989 to work at Stanford University Hospital, Palo Alto, California. She is currently Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians, Assistant Editor of the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation and reviews for an extensive number of international journals. professor Keogh is a member and past president of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) as well as the cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand and an Honorary member of the American Society of Transplant Physicians and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. her current research interests are cardiac failure, pulmonary arterial hypertension, heart transplantation, immunosuppression and alternatives to transplantation.

Professor Harvey received his PhD in 1982 from the Department of Biochemistry, University of Adelaide. After further training at Harvard University for 3 years and spending 10 years at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Professor Harvey joined the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in 1998, where he is currently Co-Deputy Director and Head of the Developmental Biology Program. Professor Harvey's expertise is in developmental cardiology using the mouse as a genetic model. He holds the endowed Sir Peter Finley Professorship of Heart Research at the University of New South Wales, is a member of the Australian Academy of Science, an Associate Member of EMBO and an NHMRC Australia Fellow.

Chris Hayward is Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales and Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiologist at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney. Having trained at Concord Repatriation and St Vincent's Hospital he completed a National Heart Foundation Overseas Postdoctoral Fellowship before returning to St Vincent's to join the Heart and Lung Transplant Unit. he is involved in multiple clinical heart failure trials, investigator initiated as well as multicentre international drug and device studies.

Dr Doug Hilton joined the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) where he obtained his PhD in 1990. He then took a postdoctoral position at the prestigious Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research in Boston, USA. He returned to WEHI in 1993 as a Queen Elizabeth II Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cancer Unit. He has now risen to be Executive Director of WEHI and was formerly Director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Cellular Growth Factors. His current research centres on a class of proteins called suppressors of cytokine signalling (SOCS), which help to switch off a cell's response to circulating hormones or cytokines, and on building systems biology platforms for analysis of haemopoiesis, including ENU mutagenesis and large-scale lineage-wide microarray profiling.

Stephen Hunyor is a Cardiologist and Director of the Cardiac Technology Centre at the Kolling Institute, University of Sydney, at Royal North Shore Hospital. His principal interest has been in translational research, studying heart damage and repair with a focus on heart failure and its treatment with devices and more recently cellular therapy. His group specialises in "whole heart" response in terms of haemodynamics and cardiac mechanics and energetics. He was Director of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Cardiac Technology (1992-99) which established highly effective collaboration between Hospitals, Universities, CSIRO and industry. Professor Hunyor is co-Founder of the North Shore Heart Research Foundation and an Alumnus of St Vincent's Hospital.

Paul Jansz is a Cardiothoracic and Transplant Surgeon, having completed undergraduate studies in 1992 at The University of Newcastle, and Cardiac Surgical Training in Sydney at St Vincent's and RPAH & Westmead. Dr Jansz then went on to complete a PhD in Transplantation in 2003 at the University of NSW. He travelled overseas for a Fellowship and Consultancy position at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, UK, and in 2004 returned to Consultancy at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney in Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery and Heart and Lung Transplantation. Research interests and sub-specialty areas are transplantation, mechancial heart assist devices, robotic cardiac surgery, minimally invasive cardiac and heart failure surgery.

Peter Macdonald

Professor Macdonald is a Conjoint Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales and joint head of the Transplantation Research Laboratory at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute. His major clinical and research interests over the last 20 years have been in the areas of heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, acute and chronic transplant allograft rejection, donor management and donor organ preservation injury. He has published over 120 original manuscripts in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is co-author of the Chronic Heart Failure Guidelines for the National Heart Foundation/Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand.  He is a senior member of the cardiothoracic transplant program at St Vincent's Hospital, which is the largest cardiothoracic program in Australia and regarded as a leading transplant program internationally. In addition he is President-elect of the Transplantation Society of Australia & New Zealand and chairs the Society?s Standing Committees which are responsible for the development of clinical policies and protocols for organ and tissue transplantation in Australia and New Zealand.

Dr. Pye is a physician trained Intensive Care Specialist who also trained as a Cardiothoracic Anaesthetist. He has been involved in the Cardiopulmonary Transplant Unit at St Vincent's since 1999 and actively involved in the ECMO program at St Vincent's since 2004. He is one of the Consultants for the NSW ECMO Retrieval Service and is a member of the management committee for the ANZ ECMO Investigators.

Professor John Rasko FRCPA FRACP is a practising Haematologist who directs Cell and Molecular Therapies at RPA Hospital and heads the Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program at the Centenary Institute, University of Sydney. His was the first formal appointment in clinical gene therapy in Australia. Professor Rasko has an international research track record in gene therapy, experimental haematology and cell biology. His research has been successful in uncovering new mechanisms of leukaemia, understanding blood hormones, identifying the genetic causes of kidney diseases and clinical trials of new biological therapies for cancer and bleeding disorders. Most recently he developed a milestone in gene therapy for haemophilia with collaborators in the USA. He has received many awards for medical research, teaching and public service. He serves on Hospital, Sydney University Medical Faculty, state and national bodies including the Gene Technology Technical Advisory Committee, NH&MRC and Cancer Council Grant Review Panels. He has authored almost 100 publications and recently co-edited a book on the ethics of inheritable genetic modification.

A/Prof Winlaw is a cardiac surgeon and scientist. He undertook his training in adult cardiac surgery at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney and completed a doctoral thesis examining the role of nitric oxide in acute allograft rejection, supervised by Professor Peter Macdonald. He then specialised in paediatric cardiac surgery and after a fellowship year at Birmingham Children's Hospital, UK, was appointed as an academic and surgeon to The Children's Hospital at Westmead. A/Prof Winlaw is Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery and of Kids Heart Research. He performs basic scientific and clinical research with a view to improving outcomes for children with congenital heart disease (CHD). A/Prof Winlaw's clinical research examines the neurodevelopmental outcomes of infants undergoing open-heart surgery in the first 90 days of life and investigations into the relationship between cardiac output, vasopressin release and w

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