From broken to bionic: How medical breakthroughs are repairing hearts

It’s your body’s hardest working muscle, beating more than 115,000 times each day. Over time, our hearts become vulnerable due to age, diet, exercise and hereditary factors. With 1.2 million Australians affected,  you probably know someone impacted by heart disease. Join us to hear directly from Queensland’s world-leading cardiac researchers and clinicians about how modern mechanics and heart muscle regeneration are keeping hearts beating. Have your questions answered by those at the cutting-edge of cardiac research and meet the man with a new heart.

When: 7:00am – 9:00am (presentation begins at 7:30am), Thursday 2 March
Where: Customs House, Queen St, Brisbane
Cost: $20 per person (includes breakfast)

This event is almost sold out. For enquiries, please email Hayley Smith.

Speaker bios

Dr Nathan Palpant

Dr Nathan Palpant is a stem cell biologist with a focus on cardiovascular development and disease. With research training from the University of Michigan and University of Washington, in 2015 he established the Stem Cell and Cardiovascular Development Laboratory and is co-director of the Queensland Facility for Advanced Genome Engineering at UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience. He is recipient of the International Society for Heart Research Young Investigator Award. His lab uses stem cells coupled with genomics, computational bioinformatics, genome engineering, and disease modelling to study mechanisms underlying cardiac and vascular development and disease.

Professor John Fraser

Professor John Fraser is a graduate of the University of Glasgow where he received fellowships in Medicine and Anaesthesia during his basic ICU training. He is a pre-eminent Intensivist at The Prince Charles Hospital, founder and Director of the Critical Care Research Group (CCRG) and is the Director of ICU at St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital.  As well as holding 5 professorial appointments, Professor Fraser holds the first ever Centre for Research Excellence on Bionic Hearts and Lungs co-ordinating multidisciplinary research in this emerging area across Australia, Asia, Europe and the USA. Professor Fraser also co-founded BiVACOR, a total artificial heart company and is the Medical Director of the Innovative Cardiovascular Engineering Laboratory.