Dr. Yan Wang is an Early Career Research Fellow in the Integrative Cardiovascular Pharmacology Group within the Department of Pharmacology at Monash University. She has more than 10 years’ experience in cardiovascular pharmacology, specialising in novel treatments for cardiovascular and renal diseases, particularly end-organ damage and fibrosis in the heart and kidney. Following completion of her Honours Degree with First Class Honours at Monash University, Yan worked as a Research Assistant before undertaking her PhD from 2016–2020. Her research has contributed to the development of novel peptides with high AT2R selectivity demonstrating significant anti-fibrotic and anti-inflammatory effects, resulting in a patent filing in 2018. During her postdoctoral training, Yan established high-throughput anti-fibrotic drug screening assays and a new myocardial infarction model in Australia. She has received numerous national and international awards recognising her research excellence and remains actively involved with HBPRCA and ASCEPT.

Susan Howlett is Professor of Pharmacology and Medicine (Geriatric Medicine) at Dalhousie University in Halifax, where she has taught for more than 30 years. She has led discovery research into how age, frailty, and sex steroid hormones affect cardiovascular function and predispose towards heart diseases in later life. With a strong record of funding from agencies including the Canada Biomedical Research Fund, the River Phillips Foundation, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSFC), she has held uninterrupted support from one or more of these agencies since 1990. She is Associate Editor for The Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences and is on numerous editorial boards for prominent journals in the field. As the national Chair of the Scientific Review Committee for the HSFC and Chair of the Dalhousie Cardiac Research group (DalCREW), she has extensive leadership experience at the local, national, and international levels. She has an H-index of 58, has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers, 16 encyclopedia / book chapters, and has given more than 145 invited national and international presentations. Her work has been selected as Editor’s Choice, featured in numerous editorials, and has been F1000Prime Recommended. An enthusiastic supervisor, her training and mentorship of now generations of young scientists, the great bulk of whom have pursued academic careers, speaks to her ability to inspire young researchers.

Tim is a final-year PhD candidate at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences whose research interest is encompassed by investigating novel treatments for cardiorenal and metabolic diseases. Tim underwent the majority of his tertiary education at the University of Bristol, UK, where he obtained his undergraduate degree in Pharmacology, Masters by research degree in molecular pharmacology and platelet cell biology before working as a specialist research technician with the academic renal unit, Bristol Medical School. Tim returned to Australia in 2022 to commence his PhD.

Dr. Gergely is an assistant professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary. His preclinical research interests include cardio-oncology, with a particular focus on the cardiovascular adverse effects of immune checkpoint inhibitors and the inflammatory mechanisms underlying heart failure. In addition to his basic science research activities, he is currently a cardiology resident at the Gottsegen National Cardiovascular Center in Budapest, Hungary.

Supitchaya is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Pharmacology at Monash University as part of the IRAP Pharmacology Group and Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Pharmacology Group. Her area of research focuses on identifying novel therapeutic targets to treat Pulmonary Hypertension (PH). After completing her Honours at Monash, she worked as a research assistant at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, testing compounds in preclinical mouse models of pancreatic cancer. Now, she continues her work in PH, investigating IRAP as a novel therapeutic target. This involves testing IRAP inhibitors and performing right heart catheterisation in mouse models of PH, and utilising immunohistochemistry to explore pathological changes within the lungs. She hopes to contribute to cardiovascular therapeutic testing and discover novel treatments to improve patient outcomes.