The overall theme of the Conference is "Heart to Heart: from Access to Action". The program will span primary prevention through to reduction of risk factors, and treatment and ongoing management of cardiovascular disease.

The plenary sessions will focus on "big picture" topics, of broad appeal to clinicians, researchers, and public health practitioners, such as risk factors for heart disease, the psychosocial aspects of cardiovascular disease, women and heart disease, and health systems issues.

Concurrent sessions will allow for a more specialist focus. The program will include a major "from research to clinical practice" stream which is likely to include topics such as acute coronary syndromes; chronic heart failure; management of clinical risk factors such as lipids and hypertension; cardiomyopathies; arrhythmias; thrombosis; rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease; quality use of medicines; and state of the art technologies, including devices and imaging.

There will also be a public health stream, of interest to clinicians as well as public health practitioners, covering topics such as tobacco control and smoking cessation; overweight and obesity; physical activity and sedentary behaviour; healthy eating; and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heart health.

Confirmed International speakers include:

• Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, Imperial College London - Myocardial Regeneration and Heart Transplant
• Professor C Noel Bairey Merz, Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, US - Women's cardiovascular health
• Professor Dame Carol Black, Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, UK -The health of the working age population
• Professor Marc Hamilton, Pennington Biomedical Research Centre, US - The impact of sedentary behaviour
• Professor Finlay McAlister, University of Alberta, Canada - The Canadian Hypertension Education Program
• Professor Maurice Mittelmark, University of Bergen, Norway - Health promotion and education.
• Professor C Barr Taylor, Department of Psychiatry and Medicine, Stanford University, US - Psychiatry, behavioural medicine, cardiovascular disease and co-morbid depression

Confirmed Australian speakers include:

• Mr Aubrey Almeida
• Dr Alex Brown
• Professor David Celermajer
• Professor Derek Chew
• Professor Mike Daube
• Professor Stephen Davis
• Associate Professor Dunstan
• Professor Murray Esler
• Jim Hyde
• Professor David Kaye
• Dr Jonathan Liberman
• Professor Robyn McDermott
• Professor Caroline McMillen
• Professor Ian Meredith
• A/Prof David Prior
• Professor Jo Salmon
• Professor Prash Sanders
• Dr Surinder Singh
• Associate Professor Cameron Stewart
• Professor Boyd Swinburn
• Professor Stephen Worthley

Confirmed International Speakers

Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub

Sir Magdi Yacoub is currently Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College and Founder and Director of Research at the Harefield Heart Science Centre (Magdi Yacoub Institute) overseeing over 60 scientists and students in the areas of tissue engineering, myocardial regeneration, stem cell biology, end stage heart failure and transplant immunology. Read More

Professor Yacoub was born in Egypt and graduated from Cairo University Medical School in 1957, trained in London and held an Assistant Professorship at the University of Chicago. He is a former BHF Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery for over 20 years and Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Harefield Hospital from 1969-2001 and Royal Brompton Hospital from 1986-2001. Professor Yacoub established the largest heart and lung transplantation programme in the world where more than 2,500 transplant operations have been performed. He has also developed novel operations for a number of complex congenital heart anomalies. He was knighted for his services to medicine and surgery in 1991, awarded Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998 and Fellowship of The Royal Society in 1999. A lifetime outstanding achievement award in recognition of his contribution to medicine was presented to Professor Yacoub by the Secretary of State for Health in the same year.

Research led by Professor Yacoub include tissue engineering heart valves, myocardial regeneration, novel left ventricular assist devices and wireless sensors with collaborations within Imperial College, nationally and internationally. He has also supervised over 18 higher degree (PhD/MD) students and published over 1,000 articles.

Sir Magdi has an active interest in global healthcare delivery with particular focus developing programmes in Egypt, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Jamaica. He is Founder and President of the Chain of Hope charity, treating children with correctable cardiac conditions from war-torn and developing countries and establishing training and research programmes in local cardiac units.

Awards

• 2007 Medal of Merit, President, International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences
• 2006 European Society of Cardiology Gold Medal
• 2004 International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2003 Golden Hippocrates International Award for Excellence in Cardiac Surgery (Moscow)
• 2003 WHO Prize for Humanitarian Services (Geneva)
• 2003 Honorary Doctorate of Medicine, University of Padua (Anniversary of William Harvey)
• 2001 Special Envoy to the NHS
• 2001 The Cleveland Clinic Foundation Heart Failure Summit: Kaufman Awardee
• 1999 Lifetime outstanding achievement award in recognition of contribution to medicine. UK Secretary of State for Health.
• 1998 Texas Heart Institute Ray C. Fish Award for Scientific Achievement in Cardiovascular Disease.
• 1991 Knighthood for services to Medicine

Professor C Noel Bairey Merz

Director, Women's Heart Center Director, Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center
Women's Guild Chair in Women's Health
C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, holds the Women's Guild Endowed Chair in Women's Health, and is Director of the Women's Heart Center as well as the Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She also is Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Read More

Dr. Bairey Merz's research interests include women and heart disease, mental stress and heart disease, the role of exercise and stress management in reversing disease, and the role of nutrition in heart disease. Currently, she is chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored WISE (Women's Ischemic Syndrome Evaluation) initiative, which is investigating potential methods for more effective diagnosis and evaluation of coronary artery disease in women. Dr. Bairey Merz has received investigational grants from the NIH-National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), NIH-National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine (NCCAM), the Pfeiffer Foundation, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, The Barbra Streisand Foundation and the Women's Guild.

A prolific lecturer, Dr. Bairey Merz, is a member of many professional organizations, including the American Heart Association (AHA), the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the NHLBI Advisory Council, the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, the American Society of Preventive Cardiology, the Association of Academic Women's Health Programs, and the Association of Women's Heart Programs. She serves on the Board of Trustees of the ACC, where she is a fellow, and is a past-chair of the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease committee, and the Women in Cardiology Committee of the AHA. She currently serves on the National Heart, Lung and Blood Scientific Advisory Council. Other professional associations include membership on the National Space Biomedical Research Institute Board of Scientific Counselors, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Board of Examiners, and she IS Chair of the NIH-sponsored Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigations 2 Diabetes (BARI-2D) Data Safety Monitoring Board
(DSMB). She serves on the advisory boards of lay organizations, including Women's Heart and Sister-to- Sister.

Bairey Merz has an extensive scientific publication record consisting of over 180 scientific publications, more than 200 abstracts, and numerous book chapters. Her work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Circulation, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and the Journal of Women's Health.

Dr. Bairey Merz has received numerous awards and honors including the 2008 McCue Female Cardiologist of the Year Award, the 2005 Red Dress Award For Leadership in Cardiovascular Research in Women, the 2005 VHA Inc. Best Practices Awards for Special Achievement Award presented to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of health care, the 2005 Women of the 21^st Century award from the Women's Guild of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and the 2006 Alvin P. Shapiro Award by Psychosomatic Society for excellence in clinical research.
Dr. Bairey Merz has appeared frequently in the media, recognized as an authority on the subject of heart disease and stress. Her television appearances have included Good Morning America, NBC Dateline and 20/20. She has also been interviewed for articles published in The New York Times, Ladies Home Journal, US News & World Report and Working Woman Magazine, to name a few. Dr. Bairey Merz is currently the national spokesperson for VHA's Women's HeartAdvantage campaign, which seeks to raise awareness of heart disease in women.

Dr. Bairey Merz received her bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and her medical degree from Harvard University. She completed her residency at the University of California, San Francisco, where she served as Chief Medical Resident. Dr. Bairey Merz also completed fellowships in clinical cardiology and nuclear cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Professor Dame Carol Black

Professor Dame Carol Black is the National Director for Health and Work, Chairman of the Nuffield Trust, President of the British Lung Foundation, and Pro-Chancellor at the University of Bristol. She is the immediate past-President of the Royal College of Physicians, and has recently stepped down as Chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. The Centre she established at the Royal Free Hospital, London is internationally renowned in the field of connective tissue diseases. Read More

Since the early-1990s she has worked at board level in a number of organisations, including the Royal Free Hospital Hampstead NHS Trust, the Health Foundation, the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, and the Imperial College Healthcare Charity, and recently chaired the UK Health Honours Committee. She is a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, a member of the Committee for the Queen's Awards for Voluntary Service, chairs the governance board of the new Centre for Workforce Intelligence, and is on several national committees aiming to improve healthcare. She is a Foreign Affiliate of the Institute of Medicine USA, and has been awarded many honorary degrees and fellowships.

Professor Marc Hamilton

Dr. Marc Hamilton, Professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, oversees an internationally renowned research program into the metabolic and health effects of physical inactivity and sedentary time. His pioneering research has led to the emergence of the new research discipline - 'inactivity physiology'. Read More

Dr. Hamilton has published his research in the leading international journals, including three highly thought-provoking review articles on the role of low energy expenditure and sitting in obesity, type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease. His research provides valuable insights into the potential biological consequences of too much sitting and the implications for our modern society.

Professor Finlay A. McAlister

Professor, Division of General Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta. Dr. McAlister is a general internist and Senior Health Scholar of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research who holds the Aventis/Merck Frosst Chair in Patient Health Management at the University of Alberta. Read More

Dr. McAlister obtained his MD at the University of Alberta in 1990 and completed his general internal medicine residency in 1994. He completed his MSc in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa in 1998 and did post-doctoral training at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Oxford University, UK. Dr. McAlister's main research thrust is in evidence-based medicine and the optimization of patient outcomes in hypertension, heart failure, perioperative care, and coronary artery disease. He attends on the general medicine CTU, has published over 230 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and has received the Canadian Society of Internal Medicine Young Investigator Award (1999) and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Gold Medal for Research (2005). He is currently President of the Canadian Society of Internal Medicine, chairs the Canadian Hypertension Education Program Outcomes Research Task Force, and also serves on the Advisory Board of the Canadian Cochrane Network.

Professor Maurice Mittelmark

Maurice B. Mittelmark is a psychologist and epidemiologist, and a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology. He conducted health behaviour research and community-based studies of chronic disease prevention at the University of Minnesota from 1978 to 1987. Read More

At Wake Forest University (1987-1995) he directed the Center for Human Services Research and several community studies related to the health needs of vulnerable population sub-groups including older adults and African-Americans. Since 1995, he has held a Chair in Health Promotion at the University of Bergen, where he is presently Professor and Head of Department. Professor Mittelmark was President of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) in the period 2001-2007 and IUHPE Vice President for Communications, and Editor-in-Chief of the IUHPE's journal Global Health Promotion in the period 2007-2010. In 2007 he was elected Honorary Academician, Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, the first non-citizen of the UK to be so honoured.

Professor C Barr Taylor

Dr. Taylor is a Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford Medical Center, where he directs the Laboratory for the Study of Behavioral Medicine. He completed his undergraduate work at Columbia College, his MD at the University of Utah and his residency training in Psychiatry at Stanford. Read More

Dr Taylor's research has focused on developing and evaluating methods to reduce cardiovascular risk at the individual, community and population level. He was Associate Director of the Stanford Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, Director of Education for the Stanford Heart Disease Prevention Program and Co-PI for the Stanford NHLBI ENRICHD study designed to determine the effects of reducing depression on reducing cardiovascular risk. He has undertaken a number of studies to determine the mechanisms by which depression affects cardiovascular outcomes and has designed interventions to reduce depression in patients with cardiovascular disease. He is past president of the Society for the Study of Behavioral Medicine. He has published over 300 peer reviewed papers and chapters and has written 7 professional books.

Confirmed Australian Speakers

Mr Aubrey Almeida

Aubrey Almeida graduated MBBS from the University of Melbourne in 1986 and two years later undertook four years of military services with the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps. He completed his Cardiothoracic training in 1999, training at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, Australia and the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia whereupon he undertook a graduate Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA. Read More

He commenced practice in 2001 as a Consultant Cardiothoracic surgeon and is a member of the Senior Medical Staff at Monash Medical Centre and the Epworth Hospital, Melbourne. Mr Almeida is a member of the team that pioneered robotic surgery in Australia. He is a member of the Epworth Hospital Medical Advisory Council, and deputy chair of the Cardiac Sciences Clinical Institute. He has interests in valvular heart disease, minimally invasive surgery, adult congenital heart disease and surgical education.

Dr Alex Brown

Dr Alex Brown (BMed, MPH, PhD) is the Head of the Centre for Indigenous Vascular and Diabetes Research, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, in Alice Springs. For the last 10 years Dr Brown has been working on Aboriginal health, education, policy, communicable disease control, service delivery and public health, epidemiology, research and research ethics. Read More

His research interests focus on Indigenous cardiovascular disease disparity and its determinants, clinical and epidemiological cardiovascular research, chronic disease policy development, health services research, Indigenous male health, and unpacking the psychosocial determinants of Indigenous health.

Professor Jonathan Carapetis

Jonathan Carapetis is Director of Menzies School of Health Research in the Northern Territory. He is a paediatrician, infectious diseases and public health physician, with particular expertise in group A streptococcal diseases, vaccines and vaccine preventable diseases, and health of children in Indigenous communities and developing countries. His work on controlling rheumatic heart disease and in developing new vaccine strategies is known internationally. His research into rheumatic fever in the Aboriginal population was instrumental in the establishment of Australia’s first rheumatic heart disease control program in the Top End. He continues to run a program of research and public health interventions in rheumatic fever in both Australia and globally, and has been involved in the development of a national RHD strategy in Australia. Professor Carapetis is a leader in of the World Heart Federation's Rheumatic Heart Disease programme, is Director of RHD Australia (the National Coordination Unit for the Rheumatic Fever Strategy) and has written the rheumatic fever chapters for a number of textbooks including Harrison’s Textbook of Internal Medicine, the Oxford Textbook of Medicine, Hurst’s The Heart, and Infectious Diseases (ed Cohen and Powderly). He also chaired the writing group for the National Heart Foundation of Australia and Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand guidelines for management and control of rheumatic heart disease.

Professor David Celermajer

Current Positions:
Scandrett Professor of Cardiology, University of Sydney
Director of Echocardiography and Cardiologist, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Clinical Director, The Heart Research Institute, Sydney
Chairman, Research Committee, National Heart Foundation of Australia Read More

Major Academic Achievements

• First Class Honours, University Medal for 1^st in graduating class, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, 1983
• Rhodes Scholarship for New South Wales, 1983
• World Debating Champion 1983 (Princeton, NJ); World Debating and Public Speaking Champion 1984 (Edinburgh, UK)
• Master of Science, Magnetic resonance and alcoholic heart disease, Oxford University 1985
• Fellowship of Royal Australasian College of Physician, 1990
• Doctor of Philosophy, Studies of early atherosclerosis, University of London, 1993
• Fellowship of the American Heart Association, 1998
• RT Hall Prize for most outstanding contribution by a senior cardiac investigator, awarded by the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, 1998
• Eric Susman Medal for most outstanding contribution to any branch of Internal Medicine, award by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, 1998
• Commonwealth Health Minister's Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research, for outstanding lifetime contribution, 2002
• Doctor of Science, University of Sydney 2006
• Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science since 2006

Publications / Research

Over 250 manuscripts published in peer review journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, The Journal of Clinical Investigation and Circulation. Editorialist for The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet and Scientific Reviewer for over 20 journals and grant-giving bodies. Editorial Board Member for Heart; Circulation; Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Extensive experience in research in cellular/molecular biology; animal models of heart disease; clinical research; clinical trials; public health research; developing world research.

Over $10m grant support for original research since 2000

Over 100 invited international presentations given

Professor Derek Chew

Derek Chew is an interventional cardiologist, clinical-researcher, the Roy and Marjory Edwards Heart Foundation Senior Principal Research Fellow in Cardiovascular Outcomes Research and the Regional Director of Cardiology, Southern Adelaide Health Service. Read More

He graduated from the University of Melbourne Medical School in 1992 and completed internship, and internal medicine training at St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne. Advance training in Cardiology was completed at the Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre, before undertaking a two-year interventional fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Ohio. Following interventional cardiology training, he completed a Masters of Public Health, at the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, focussing on quantitative methods, advanced biostatistics, decision analysis and cost-effectiveness methodology. He is also the foundation director of the Cardiovascular Outcomes Research group at Flinders, a clinical research and data-management organization focused on the development and conduct of clinical studies evaluating the effective and cost-effective delivery clinical care to patients with cardiac disease.

His research interests are diverse and have involved publication in the field of risk assessment among patients with coronary artery disease and those undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention, anti-thrombotic and anti-platelet therapies for the treatment of coronary heart disease and the evaluation of clinical outcomes used in clinical trials.

At a national level, he serves as the chairman of the National Acute Coronary Syndromes Data Definitions working group, a joint initiative of the National Heart Foundation (NHF) and Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand defining the national standard for acute coronary syndrome definitions. He is now the clinical steward for these elements with the AIHW. He is a member of the writing committing of the NHF guidelines for the management of acute coronary syndromes, and is currently the chairman of the Acute Coronary Syndrome Electronic Decision Support working group, a collaborative between the NHF, Flinders Medical Centre and the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine for the development of a decision support tool for identification of risk among acute coronary syndrome patients. Professor Chew hopes to further develop the data infrastructure required for the objective evaluation and delivery of cardiovascular care in across South Australia and beyond.

Professor Mike Daube

Professor Mike Daube is Professor of Health Policy at Curtin University and Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute and the McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth.

Before moving to Curtin in January 2005 he was Director General of Health for Western Australia and Chair of the Australian National Public Health Partnership. He has played a leading role in public health, health policy and health advocacy in Australia, the UK and internationally since 1973. He has been a consultant and adviser over many years for the World Health Organization, the International Union against Cancer, Bloomberg Philanthropies and governments and NGOs in some 30 countries, as well as an author or co-author of many major reports. He is a regular commentator in the media on health issues.

Professor Daube recently completed his second term as national President of the Public Health Association of Australia, and leads the PHAA in WA.

He is currently also President of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health, President of the WA Heart Foundation, Chair of the National Alliance for Action on Alcohol, Chair of the WA Alcohol and Drug Authority, Deputy Chair of the Federal Government's Preventative Health Taskforce and a member of many editorial boards and other committees including the NHMRC Prevention and Community Health Committee and the Heart Foundation National Board.

He has received awards for his work from organizations including the World Health Organization, the Australian Medical Association, the National Heart Foundation, the Public Health Association of Australia, Healthway, ACOSH, Curtin University, the Australian Red Cross, the Global Flour Fortification Initiative and the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, and is a White Ribbon Ambassador and a Count Me In Ambassador.

Professor Stephen Davis

Professor Stephen Davis is Professor of Neurology at the University of Melbourne, Director of Neurosciences and the Melbourne Brain Centre at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He is the immediate past-President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists and a past-president of the Stroke Society of Australasia. He was the first Co-chair of the Australasian Stroke Trials network and has extensive experience in stroke trials. He is a board member of the World Stroke Organisation and Co-Chair of the World Stroke Academy. He is a Consulting Editor for Stroke and an Associate Editor for Cerebrovascular Diseases. He was given the M.J. Eadie Award in 2004 by the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists for career achievements in neuroscience research and the Minister's Award in 2008 for outstanding individual achievement at the Victorian Public Healthcare awards in 2008. He is the 2011 recipient of the Feinberg Award from the American Stroke Association. He holds an NHMRC program grant in stroke, has co-authored 3 books, numerous chapters, and over 300 peer-reviewed papers. His major research interests are clinical trials and the use of neuroimaging in the selection of acute stroke treatments.

Associate Professor Dunstan

Associate Professor Dunstan is the Head of the Physical Activity laboratory and the Physical Activity Project Leader of the Healthy Lifestyle Research Centre at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia.

He has successfully established an internationally-recognised research program on the influence of physical activity and sedentary behavior in health and disease.

A/Prof Dunstan has presented his research at numerous national and international meetings, including the American Diabetes Association, European Association for the Study of Diabetes, American College of Sports Medicine and the Danish Society for Public Health .

Professor Murray Esler

Murray Esler is a cardiologist and medical scientist, Associate Director of the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Read More

Prof Esler's principal research contribution has been the development of unique methodology to study the human sympathetic nervous system. His demonstration of activation of the renal sympathetic outflow in essential hypertension stimulated the development of a new treatment for treatment-resistant patients, endovascular radio-frequency ablation of the renal sympathetic nerves. He is chief investigator of a paper describing the successes achieved with this new treatment published in the Lancet (17 November 2010).

Cate Ferry

Cate Ferry has worked in the public and private health care sectors in clinical practice, public health and project management roles.

Cate has been involved in various initiatives that have promoted the application of evidence-based practice and clinical practice improvement methodologies to drive organisational change.

Cate manages the Clinical Issues Program for the Heart Foundation (NSW Division). Her role encompasses activities and programs associated with pre-hospital and acute sector care, through to cardiac rehabilitation and secondary prevention.

Cate has worked closely with the clinicians participating in the Cardiac Depression Collaborative to promote the implementation of the evidence-based clinical practice recommendations for the screening, assessment and management of depression in people with or at increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Professor Jim Hyde

Jim Hyde is Director, Prevention & Population Health in the Victorian Department of Health. Jim has held senior roles with the RACP, PHAA, NSW Health and the Victorian AIDS Council/Gay Men's Health Centre where he has provided advice to governments on strategic and integrated responses to
Public Health and prevention priorities. He is an Adjunct Professor at Deakin University and holds a PhD from the University of Adelaide. He has also been a Chief of Staff to a Federal Minister, media commentator, spokesperson and columnist and has also worked with international projects in professional development and policy advice.

Professor David Kaye

Professor David Kaye is the Heat of the Heart Failure Division at Baker IDI and Senior Heart Failure/Transplant Cardiologist at the Alfred Hospital. He has published over 190 papers and is well-known internationally for his work on the pathophysiology of Heart Failure. Read More

His clinical and experimental work has led to the development of devices for the treatment of mitral valve regurgitation and cardiac gene and cell delivery.

He received the Eric Sussman Prize for Research from the RACP, the RT Hall Prize from CSANZ, and in 2005 was recognised by the NHMRC in the “10 of the Best” Campaign.

Dr Jonathan Liberman

Jonathan Liberman is Senior Legal Policy Adviser for the Union for International Cancer Control and Senior Adviser, International Legal Policy at the Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. Read More

Jonathan has worked for over a decade on policy development and advocacy relating to prevention and treatment of cancer and other non-communicable diseases, with a focus over the last five years on international legal and policy issues, including the development and implementation of WHO's
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, access to pain relief, the relationship between international trade law and the prevention of non-communicable diseases, and the links between non-communicable diseases and social and economic development.

Professor Robyn McDermott

Robyn has worked as a primary care clinician in rural New South Wales, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland since the early 1980’s as well as managing refugee health care and public health programs from 1988 to 1992 in China, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Read More

Her work with Indigenous communities in central and northern Australia aimed to understand the causes and consequences of rapid changes in living conditions and nutrition on health status, and how to intervene to improve health outcomes. As a medical epidemiologist and public health physician in north Queensland from 1995 to 2004, she built capacity in community-level health information systems for rural Indigenous services. She also initiated the Chronic Disease Strategy and enhanced primary care programs adopted by Queensland Health in 2002.

Robyn is Professor of Public Health and Foundation Director of the State-wide Data Linkage Unit, SA/NT Datalink, a joint venture between the three South Australian universities, South Australian and the NT governments. Prior to that she spent 5 years as Pro Vice Chancellor, Health Sciences at UniSA. She serves as a member of the NHMRC Academy and the SA Health Performance Council and is currently supervising 5 Indigenous PhD students. Her work improving chronic care systems in Indigenous primary care settings in north Queensland was recognised in the 2006 NHMRC “10 of the best” awards.

Professor Caroline McMillen

Caroline McMillen has an international track record as a researcher working on the developmental origins of adult health and disease. She has previously been Chair of the Department of Physiology, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Director of the Research Centre for the Early Origins of Adult Health at the University of Adelaide before taking up her current role as Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research and Innovation at the University of South Australia. Read More

As a research leader she has been funded by the NHMRC and ARC for 20 years, has given invited presentations at more than 60 national and international meetings and has published over 190 papers and invited reviews in the area of perinatology, fetal development and the early origins of obesity and the metabolic syndrome. She has been a member and Chair of NHMRC Grant Review Panels, the ARC Biological Sciences Panel, NHMRC Enabling Grants Committee, NCRIS Expert Sub Committee on Promoting and Maintaining Good Health and served on the Health Research Council of New Zealands' Program Grant Advisory Committee. She is currently a member of the Council of the International Union of Physiological Societies.

Professor Ian Meredith

Ian Meredith is a Professor of Cardiology, Monash University and Director of MonashHeart, Southern Health in Melbourne. He is also Executive Director of the Monash Cardiovascular Research Centre, Southern Health. Ian has almost 20 years experience as a clinical and interventional cardiologist. He has performed more than 10,000 invasive cardiac & coronary procedures. Professor Meredith is an author or co-author of more than 200 published papers and has been chief investigator or principal investigator of more than 30 major international multicentre, randomised trials including world first in man trials of new drug-eluting stents.Read More

Ian is a member of the Board of the National Heart Foundation (Vic Division), past Chairman of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (Vic Region), Chairman of ANZET Organizing Committee, Associate Director of Transcatheter Therapeutics (TCT) the worlds largest Interventional Cardiology meeting and he is the only Australian on the Board of Trustees of the International Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI). He also serves on a number of professional & federal government committees and advisory boards including the Department of Human Services Cardiac Services Review and the Federal Government Department of Health & Ageing Cardiac Prosthesis Advisory Group

Dr Janna Morrison

An accomplished researcher in the field of fetal development, Janna Morrison is Head of the Early Origins of Adult Health Research Group in the Sansom Institute for Health Research at the University of South Australia. Dr Morrison has been funded as a fellow by the Heart Foundation since 2004 and is currently s a South Australian Cardiovascular Health Network Fellow. Her current research centres on how the fetal cardiovascular system responds to changes in nutrient supply before conception and during pregnancy. After completing her PhD at the University of British Columbia, Janna held postdoctoral positions at University of Toronto and the University of Adelaide before joining the Sansom Institute for Health Research in 2006. Among her numerous awards and achievements, Janna received a South Australian Tall Poppy Science Award (2006) in recognition of her work examining the link between low birth weight and heart disease in adulthood.

AProf David Prior

Associate Professor David Prior is Director of Non-invasive Cardiac Imaging and Head of the Heart Failure Clinic at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne. After training in cardiology at the Alfred Hospital, he completed a PhD in heart failure at the Baker Heart Research Institute and a subsequent echocardiography fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio. He has worked at St Vincent's Hospital since 2000 and also holds a position as Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. Major clinical and research interests are in heart failure management, echocardiography, exercise physiology and pulmonary hypertension.

Professor Jo Salmon

Professor Jo Salmon holds a Personal Chair in the Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research, Deakin University and is supported by a Heart Foundation Career Development Award. Her research interests are in assessing the effectiveness of interventions to reduce children's sedentary behaviours and promote physical activity. Jo has been a Chief Investigator on 18 nationally competitive grants, and has published more than 118 peer-review journal articles and nine book chapters, in these and related areas. She has been an invited or keynote speaker at 11 international scientific conferences and meetings and played a key role in development of the National Child and Youth Physical Activity Recommendations for 0-5 year olds and 5-18 year olds in Australia. Professor Jo Salmon National Heart Foundation of Australia and sanofi-aventis Career Development Award Fellow Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research (C-PAN) School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University

Professor Prash Sanders

Dr. Sanders graduated with honours from the University of Adelaide in 1994. He undertook Physician and Cardiology training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He then undertook clinical training in Cardiac Electrophysiology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital under the mentorship of Professor Jonathan Kalman. During this time he also completed his PhD through the University of Melbourne. Following this Dr Sanders joined the team of Professor Michel Haïssaguerre in Bordeaux, France. Read More

In 2005, Dr. Sanders returned to Adelaide and was appointed to the Knapman - National Heart Foundation Chair of Cardiology Research at the University of Adelaide and as Clinical Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He has established a dedicated clinical and experimental electrophysiology laboratory and group that has been highly productive. Dr. Sanders was recently awarded the Scopus Australian Medical Researcher of the Year 2010 for the category under the age of 40.

Dr Surinder Singh

Surinder Singh is based at CSIRO Plant Industry Canberra and is the Project leader of projects, comprising of 25 scientists and technicians, applying molecular biology of fatty acid synthesis and metabolic engineering to manipulate fatty acid composition to produce novel edible and industrial plant oils. His project team was the first in the world to apply CSIRO's RNAi-mediated gene silencing technologies to genetically modify product quality in plants. Read More

This pioneering work on silencing fatty acid desaturase and thioesterase genes has resulted in the creation of high-oleic forms of cottonseed, canola and mustard oils, which are ready for commercial development. Currently, he is actively using metabolic engineering for the development of plant oils that can be used for the production of bio-materials and bio-based polymers through the transfer of genes that drive the synthesis of functionalised fatty acids in wild species into oilseed crops. His project team also achieved world-first production of nutritionally important long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA), EPA and DHA, in seed oil. This required the discovery, introduction and coordinated expression of transgenes encoding an entire biosynthetic pathway comprising five discrete enzymatic conversion steps and represents one of the most complex pathway introductions so far achieved in plant metabolic engineering.

Associate Professor Cameron Stewart

Cameron Stewart is an Associate Professor in Law at Sydney Law School and Associate Professor at VELiM. He has degrees in economics, law and jurisprudence. He has worked in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and has practiced commercial law at Phillips Fox Lawyers. He is the Secretary and Acting President of the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Health Law and Ethics, (anzihle.org). Cameron has a doctorate from the University of Sydney on end of life decision-making, which is his main area of research. Cameron is also interested in the history of Australian property law. He has worked on a number of projects for NSW Health, the Office of the Public Guardian, the NSW Public Trustee and the NSW Guardianship Tribunal. He has also consulted for organisations such as Alzheimer's Australia.

On a personal note, Cameron used to fancy himself as a cartoonist. He rarely picks up the ink brush these days but is still an avid collector of comic art (particularly the works of Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Mike Sekowsky, George Perez, Wally Wood and Jack Kirby). In a prior life Cameron also sung in a garage band but these days is much too embarrassed to talk about it. He also pretends to be able to play rugby union but is as tough as a wet paper bag.

Professor Boyd Swinburn

Boyd Swinburn is the Alfred Deakin Professor of Population Health and Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Melbourne. He trained as a specialist endocrinologist in Auckland and his research career began with metabolic and clinical studies at the National Institutes of Health in Phoenix, Arizona and at the University of Auckland. Read More

He was the Medical Director of the National Heart Foundation in New Zealand from 1993-2000. His major research interest at Deakin University is centred on obesity prevention, particularly in children and adolescents, and efforts to reduce, what he has coined, the 'obesogenic' environment. He has developed and supported a number of community-based demonstration projects in the Barwon-South West region of Victoria and these are linked to similar projects in Melbourne, Auckland, Fiji, and Tonga.

He was President of the Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity (ASSO) from 2005-7 and has been a Steering Group member of the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) since 1997 and co-chair since 2009. He has also contributed as an Expert Advisor to WHO on obesity at 15 WHO Consultations around the world since 1998. Through these efforts and his many publications and presentations, he is significantly contributing to national and global efforts to reduce the obesity epidemic.

Professor Stephen Worthley

Prof. Stephen Worthley graduated from Adelaide University, South Australia, in 1992. His medical internship and medical residency was undertaken at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he also began his advanced Cardiology training. He then completed a PhD at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York, under Professor Valentin Fuster, in Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Atherosclerosis, during the late 1990s. Read More

During this time he won young investigator awards for his work both at his institution and with the North American Society of Cardiac Imaging. He then returned to Australia to the Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne, Victoria, in 2000 completing his interventional training and undertaking a MD in Novel Intravascular Imaging of Atherosclerosis. He was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medicine at Monash University during this period and as a member of the Cardiovascular Research Centre at Monash Medical Centre involved in the establishment of the inaugural Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences degree at Monash University.

Over the last 5 years, Dr. Worthley has published over 100 manuscripts and 190 abstracts in the fields of cardiovascular imaging and intervention, and co-authored 4 book chapters on Cardiovascular MRI including the cardiac text, Hurst's The Heart. He holds a number of grants for research into the utility of MRI and intravascular ultrasound for imaging atherosclerosis, including projects that are ongoing in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide in Australia, as well as collaborations with researchers in France, England, USA and New Zealand.
Currently, he is a Cardiologist at the Wakefield and Royal Adelaide Hospitals, continuing his academic and clinical work in interventional cardiology and cardiovascular imaging. He is the Director of Cardiovascular Imaging at the Wakefield Hospital and recently appointed as the inaugural Helpman Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Adelaide and the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he is now the director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories and Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging. He has established the first Cardiac MRI and MDCT unit in Australasia with clinical and research expertise.

He is recognised nationally and internationally for his achievements and work in advancing the role of imaging in atherosclerosis detection, and has broader expertise in the utility of MRI and MDCT in the cardiovascular arena, both as research and clinical tools.