Over $8 million awarded to 16 NSW cardiovascular researchers

Every year in NSW over 15,000 people die from cardiovascular disease. This amounts to more than 40 people every day. Ten times that number of CVD patients are hospitalised. Meanwhile, across Australia, one person dies from CVD every 12 minutes.

Despite these sobering figures, NSW death rates from CVD have more than halved in the last 20 years. This good news story is due to a range of factors including reduced smoking rates and better management of blood pressure. Improvements in medical detection, treatment and care are also part of this positive health trend.

Investment in cardiovascular research has played, and will continue to play, a major role in these improved patient outcomes. To further these advances, in June 2018, the NSW Government announced $150 million in funding for cardiovascular disease research over the next decade.

This investment aims to support CVD research that will enable ground-breaking new discoveries and innovative therapies. It will also increase capacity for more clinical trials and for leveraging existing research already underway across institutes, hospital and universities.

The Cardiovascular Research Capacity Program is supporting NSW to become a centre of cardiovascular excellence. The Program subsidises and nurtures talented researchers from NSW while also attracting world-leaders from interstate and overseas. These researchers are working individually and collaboratively to tackle the diverse challenges of cardiovascular disease. Their translational research will continue to improve the health and quality of life of the people of NSW.

To continue building the State’s cardiovascular research capacity, a further 5 Senior Researcher Grants and 11 Early-Mid Career Researcher Grants totalling over $8 million have been awarded. These will foster and facilitate research across a range of settings including preventive health, gene therapy and clinical services.

These important CVD grants affirm and reinforce the commitment of NSW Health to building local research capacity and supporting a strategic and competitive position for national cardiovascular research funding.

NSW researchers awarded these grants will help change the lives and health outcomes of cardiovascular patients in the future. The impressive rollcall of recipients includes:

• Professor Diane Fatkin, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute
• Professor Jennifer Gamble, Centenary Institute
• Associate Professor   Kristopher Kilian, University of New South Wales
• Professor Bruce Neal, The George Institute for Global Health
• Professor Kerry-Anne  Rye, University of New South Wales
• Associate Professor James Chong Westmead Institute for Medical Research
• Dr Ashish Misra, Heart Research Institute
• Dr  Gillian Blue, The Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network (Randwick and Westmead)
• A/Prof Eleni Giannoulatou, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute
• A/Prof Min Jun The George Institute for Global Health
• Clinical Associate Professor Mark  Dennis, The University of Sydney
• Dr Xia Wang, The George Institute for Global Health
• Dr Niamh Chapman, The University of Sydney
• Dr  Julee McDonagh, Western Sydney Local Health District
• Dr  Nicola Straiton, Australian Catholic University
• Dr Sonali Gnanenthiran, The George Institute for Global Health

Further information on all recipients’ and their research projects is available at www.medicalresearch.nsw.gov.au/project-directory/.