CID Weekly Seminar Series: "Novel approaches for tackling the diabetic heart", 30 May

Tuesday 30 May, 12:00 - 1:00pm, Seminar Room 1, TRF Building

A/Prof Rebecca Ritchie

Head of Heart Failure Pharmacology, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute 

The increasing global prevalence of and our aging population has given rise to an epidemic of heart failure. Up to one-third of patients in clinical heart failure trials are diabetic, and diabetes is an independent predictor of poor outcome. Despite the higher rate of heart failure in these patients, no specific treatment for heart failure exists for T2D patients. We and others have implicated elevated oxidative stress and cardiac generation of the ROS superoxide as likely contributors to this ‘diabetic cardiomyopathy’. More recently, we have identified novel mechanisms for limiting diabetes-associated cardiomyopathy, many of which specifically target the myocardium. Ultimately therapies based on these could pave the way for the development of much-needed, novel therapies that are specific for diabetic heart failure.

Assoc Prof Rebecca Ritchie [B.Sc(Hons), PhD] is Head of Heart Failure Pharmacology at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne. She holds an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship, and an adjunct appointment at the Department of Medicine of Monash University. A/Prof Ritchie’s PhD focussed on predictors of myocardial function in vivo in patients with ischaemic heart disease (University of Adelaide 1990-1994), including development of the 1st quantitative model of the force-interval relationship in human myocardium. Her postdoctoral training (Wayne State Univ 1995-1997, USA), the Florey (1997-2002) and Baker IDI (from late 2002, under Prof David Kaye) encompassed development of several experimental models. Becoming laboratory head in 2008, she has numerous relevant pre-clinical in vivo models of diabetic (T1D, T2D), ischaemic, and other cardiomyopathies in her laboratory. A/Prof Ritchie is internationally-recognised for her contributions to cardiac pharmacology, exemplified by 86 career publications (13 in the current calendar year to date). Her research achievements to date have enabled A/Prof Ritchie to identify potential new treatment strategies for arresting the progression of heart failure, particularly in the context of diabetes and myocardial infarction, maintaining a translational focus to this fundamental research. These contributions to cardiac pharmacology have been recognised by the 2012 Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists (ASCEPT) Achievement Award, the 2013 Diabetes Australia Millenium-Type 1 Diabetes Award, and election as a Fellow of the American Heart Association in 2013 in addition to continuous peer-reviewed funding since 1999 (NHMRC and other sources). Her international profile in her chosen field has been further recognised by numerous prestigious speaking invitations, including multiple World Congresses, including Cardiology, Diabetes, Pharmacology, and the International Society for Heart Research, as well as the American Heart Association and the British Pharmacology Society.

Please contact andrea.johannessen@monash.edu to meet with Rebecca after the seminar.

A light lunch is served prior to the seminar at 11:45am in the seminar room foyer, level 2, TRF Building.

Further information, including the link to add the seminar series to your google calendar, is available from CID Weekly Seminar Series website [http://www.med.monash.edu.au/scs/medicine/cid/seminar-series.html]