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Identification and treatment of advanced, rupture-prone plaques to reduce cardiovascular mortality
Atherosclerosis is the underlying cause of major cardiovascular events, including heart attack and stroke. The build-up of plaque in coronary arteries can be a major risk for events, but risk is significantly higher in patients with vulnerable rather than stable plaque. Diagnostic imaging of vulnerable plaque is extremely useful for both stratifying patient risk and for determining effectiveness of experimental intervention in reducing cardiovascular risk. In the preclinical setting, being able to distinguish between stable and vulnerable plaque development and pair this with biochemical measures is critical for identification of new experimental candidates. In this webinar, Professor Stephen Nicholls and Dr Kristen Bubb from the Victorian Heart Institute will discuss the benefits of being able to visualise vulnerable plaque for both clinical and preclinical research. Professor Stephen Nicholls is a clinician-researcher and the Head of the Victorian Heart Institute. He is the lead investigator on multiple large, international, cardiovascular outcomes trials. He has attracted over $100 million in direct research funding and published more than 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts. He is focused on both therapeutic intervention to reduce vascular inflammation and lipid accumulation and precision medicine approaches to prevent cardiovascular mortality. Dr Kristen Bubb is a biomedical researcher and Group Leader within the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute Cardiovascular Program and Victorian Heart Institute. She focuses on preclinical/translational research into mechanisms underlying vascular pathologies including atherosclerosis and endothelium-driven hypertension within specific vascular systems, including pulmonary and pregnancy-induced. She has published >30 high impact papers in leading cardiovascular journals and attracted category 1&2 funding of >$750,000.
African Neuroscience: Current Status and Prospects
Understanding the function and dysfunction of the brain remains one of the key challenges of our time. However, an overwhelming majority of brain research is carried out in the Global North, by a minority of well-funded and intimately interconnected labs. In contrast, with an estimated one neuroscientist per million people in Africa, news about neuroscience research from the Global South remains sparse. Clearly, devising new policies to boost Africa’s neuroscience landscape is imperative. However, the policy must be based on accurate data, which is largely lacking. Such data must reflect the extreme heterogeneity of research outputs across the continent’s 54 countries. We have analysed all of Africa’s Neuroscience output over the past 21 years and uniquely verified the work performed in African laboratories. Our unique dataset allows us to gain accurate and in-depth information on the current state of African Neuroscience research, and to put it into a global context. The key findings from this work and recommendations on how African research might best be supported in the future will be discussed.
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