A/Prof Antony Vinh is a Principal Research Fellow in the Department of Microbiology, Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology at La Trobe University, where he leads the Hypertension and Diabetes Division within the Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Disease Research. He earned his Ph.D. from Monash University in 2008 and completed postdoctoral training at Emory University’s Division of Cardiology, specializing in immunity and hypertension. Since joining La Trobe University in 2017, his research program has received continuous funding from the NHMRC. A/Prof Vinh’s work has significantly advanced our understanding of the roles of inflammasomes, interleukin-18, and B cells in hypertension and kidney damage, and he has recently expanded his research to explore alternative pathways, including the gut microbiome, with a specific focus on the gut virome and bacteriophages.

Professor Francine Marques is a National Health and Medical Research Council Emerging Leader, Viertel Charitable Foundation, and National Heart Foundation Fellow. She leads the Hypertension Research Laboratory at Monash University. She has published more than 120 peer-reviewed papers in top journals such as Nature Reviews Cardiology, Nature Medicine, Nature Cardiovascular Research and Circulation, and has secured $10 million in competitive funding as a principal investigator. She won 28 awards including the 2019 American Heart Association Hypertension Council Goldblatt Award, 2020 High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia and 2021 International Society of Hypertension Mid-Career Awards, and the 2021 Australian Academy of Science Gottschalk Medal. She was a finalist for 11 awards, including the Eureka Prize Emerging Leader in Science. The purpose of her research team is to build exceptional scientists that help improve cardiovascular health, using translational approaches to lower blood pressure via the gut microbiome.

Justin M. O’Sullivan PhD is a Professor and Director of the Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland. He has honorary appointments at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research (Australia), University of Southampton (UK) and A*STAR Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences. Justin’s research group is currently focused on establishing rapid genome sequencing for clinical care, understanding how disease associated mutations in non-coding DNA affect gene regulatory networks and the pathways that underlie disease development, the role of the microbiome in brain and behaviour development, and the role of microbiome restoration in clinical care.

Pingping Li got her Ph.D. degree in pharmacology at Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (CAMS & PUMC) in 2006. Then she moved to University of California San Diego for her postdoc, assistant project scientist, and assistant adjunct professor. Dr. Li set up a new lab and built a research team as an independent PI at CAMS & PUMC in 2015. She has been dedicated to studying the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes for more than 15 years and made several findings regarding to the critical role of immune cells and the identification of therapeutic targets in inflammation, insulin resistance, and diabetes. In total, she has published more than 70 papers and filed 20 patents. As first or corresponding author, Dr. Li’s papers have been published in several journals including Cell (3 papers), Nature Medicine, Nature Metabolism, Cell Metabolism, Nature Communications, and Hepatology. The purpose of her research team is to build exceptional scientists that help to improve human health, using in vitro and in vivo approaches to uncover new molecular mechanisms, new drug target, and their therapeutic applications for insulin resistance and associated metabolic disorders, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver disease. She was awarded Distinguished Professor of Peking Union Medical College (2015), 1000 Talent Youth in China (2016), Outstanding Youth of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (2016), and QiuShi Outstanding young scientist award (2017).