Dr Miles De Blasio leads the Cardio-Metabolic Physiology (CMP) laboratory at Monash University and is focussed on learning more about the metabolic alterations that occur in the heart, and the influence of the surrounding pericardial fat in the setting of diabetes and obesity. He is an expert in the endocrine and metabolic basis of diabetes and obesity and the impact that these have on cardiac metabolism and function. He is also interested in understanding how diabetes and obesity impair cardioprotective adiponectin signalling which leads to lipotoxic cardiomyopathy.

Peng-Cheng (Stan) Wang, has a Bachelor of Life Science (Chinese Culture University, Taiwan) and a Master of Science (Taipei Medical University, Taiwan). He completed his PhD in 2024 and continues his academic career as a post-doc in the Cardiovascular & Pulmonary Pharmacology Group (CPPG) in the Department of Pharmacology at Monash University. His research focuses on sex differences in the pathophysiology and treatment of pulmonary hypertension and exploring new therapeutic targets and cell-based treatments (e.g. human amniotic epithelial cell (hAEC)-derived exosomes) for the diseasse. His studies utilise the gold-standard sugen/hypoxia pre-clinical murine model of pulmonary hypertension, in which endpoint hemodynamic measures include right ventricular systolic pressure and mean arterial blood pressure together with histological and molecular analysis to examine pulmonary and cardiac remodelling and inflammation. Stan is a chief investigator on a recently awarded Heart foundation, Vanguard Grant which is focused on targeting IRAP as a novel therapy for pulmonary hypertension.

Amrita Ahluwalia is currently Dean for Research at Barts & The London, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry Queen Mary University of London. Professor Ahluwalia is an active biomedical researcher with a career spanning over 25 years. Her current research work focuses on delineating mechanisms of vascular homeostasis, differences in vascular homeostasis between men and women and particularly the effect of both nitrite and nitrate in influencing cardiovascular function in health and disease. Ahluwalia’s group were the first to demonstrate, in 2004, that nitrite is cytoprotective in the heart as well as leading translational research into the delivery of dietary nitrate to lower blood pressure and improve outcome in hypertensive and coronary artery disease patients. Prof Ahluwalia has led numerous initiatives supporting Equality and Diversity in the Academic Biomedical research environment. In particular she has led establishment of a suite of guidelines seeking to raise the bar upon reproducibility and transparency in biomedical research.

Junko Kurokawa is a professor of Department of Bio-informational Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka where she teaches and does research on the cardiac physiology and pharmacology. Dr. Junko Kurokawa obtained her BSc (1993) and PhD (1998) at Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the University of Tokyo in Japan (supervised by Prof. Taku Nagao). Dr. Kurokawa did postdoctoral work at Georgetown University (with Prof. Martin Morad) and Columbia University (with Prof. Robert S Kass), before starting a faculty position at Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Medical Research Institute (Department of Bio-informational Pharmacology, with Prof. Tetsushi Furukawa). Junko’s work has been focused on regulation of cardiac ion channels by signaling molecules, cAMP, NO and sex hormones, and has published work specifically on mechanisms associated with drug-induced ventricular arrhythmias. In 2016, Dr. Kurokawa was appointed a professor in Pharmaceutical School at University of Shizuoka. Her current research aims to identify novel molecular mechanisms of sex differences in regulation of ion channels involved in the pathophysiological function of the heart as well as other organs. In this symposium, the title of her talk is “Sex differences in susceptibility to ventricular arrhythmias.