James runs the Cardiac Bioengineering lab at QIMR Berghofer. James’ lab has brought together engineering and cell biology disciplines to develop human cardiac organoid screening platforms. As the inaugural recipient of the Snow Medical Fellowship in 2021, he is now generating a ‘Cardiopedia’ aiming to provide a comprehensive map of the molecular processes governing cardiac function. His work bridges basic science through to drug development for heart failure and targeting the pathological biological processes in heart failure. James regularly publishes leading innovations in cardiovascular research in the top journals in his field. For his work he has won the Metcalf Prize from the NSCFA in 2019, the Jian Zhou Medal from AAHMS in 2024 and the Jacques Miller Medal from the AAS in 2025.

Professor Nathan Palpant received PhD training at the University of Michigan and postdoctoral training at the University of Washington’s Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine. In 2015 he established his independent research group at the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience. Dr Palpant is a Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow and recipient of the International Society for Heart Research Young Investigator Award and the Lorne Genome Millennium Science Award. His research program focuses on mechanisms of cardiovascular development disease and involves interdisciplinary approaches in stem cell biology, genetics and genomics, and drug discovery. Dr Palpant is co-founder of Infensa Bioscience, which aims to develop new therapeutics for ischemic heart disease.

Dr Emma Solly is a postdoctoral research scientist in the Vascular Research Centre at the South Australian Health & Medical Research institute and Adelaide Medical School at the University of Adelaide.

A/Professor Emily Wong is the Faculty and Head of the Regulatory Systems Laboratory at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute (VCCRI). She completed her Ph.D. in comparative genomics at the University of Sydney. She trained at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge, UK, in regulatory genomics and, at the University of Queensland. Emily established her group at VCCRI, focusing on understanding the rules underlying mammalian gene regulation. She holds an NHMRC Investigator Grant and a Snow Medical Fellowship.

Cathy is a post doctoral researcher at the University of Western Australia. She completed her PhD at Imperial College London in early 2024, researching the effects of systemic autoimmunity on electrophysiological remodelling after myocardial infarction. Currently, she is working at UWA investigating the cardiac L-type calcium channel and the unresolved mechanisms behind beta-adrenergic signalling

Janice is a postdoctoral researcher in the Cardiac Bioengineering Group at QIMR Berghofer. She has a PhD from the University of Queensland where her work focused on developing automated RNA-sequencing pipelines for human cardiac organoids, enabling large-scale perturbation studies with an omics readout. In her current position she works on generating large-scale systems biology datasets with the aim to use machine learning approaches to develop computational models to identify new therapeutic targets for heart disease.

Dr Cheng Hwee Soh is a postdoctoral research officer who is driven by a desire to expand human healthspan as lifespans have increased over the past decades. With a background in geriatric rehabilitation, Dr Soh works to predict and improve clinical outcomes for patients at risk, leading to significant advancements that are translated into clinical practice. Currently working in the Baker Institute's Imaging Research lab, Dr Soh's research focus is centered around predicting Stage B Heart Failure and coronary artery disease among vulnerable cohorts, particularly cancer survivors. The ultimately goal is to identify an effective strategy to screen for these subclinical diseases and increase the prescription rate of preventive interventions.

Dr Weeks leads the Cardiac Signalling & Metabolism Group in the Department of Anatomy & Physiology and the Baker Department of Cardiometabolic Health at the University of Melbourne. The goal of her research is to identify novel drug targets for the treatment of cardiometabolic diseases, by investigating the molecular mechanisms that contribute to cardiac growth, remodelling and dysfunction in experimental models of heart failure, diabetes and chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity. Dr Weeks was awarded a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Melbourne in 2012, which she completed at the Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute under the supervision of Prof Julie McMullen. After her PhD, she was awarded a highly competitive Heart Foundation Overseas Research Scholarship to undertake postdoctoral research in Prof Metin Avkiran’s laboratory at King’s College London. Following her return to Australia, Dr Weeks was awarded an Emerging Leader Fellowship from the Baker Institute and The Shine On Foundation to support her research into the function of protein phosphatases, a family of enzymes that are having a renaissance as potential drug targets in multiple disease settings. In 2022, Dr Weeks relocated to the University of Melbourne and established the Cardiac Signalling & Metabolism Group. Her group uses in vivo mouse models, cell culture systems, molecular biology approaches and omic technologies to characterise novel signalling mechanisms that contribute to cardiac remodelling and dysfunction in cardiometabolic disease settings, including heart failure, type II diabetes and cardiotoxicity. Dr Weeks’ research is currently supported by a Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship and project grants from the Heart Foundation, Diabetes Australia and the Sir Edward Dunlop Medical Research Foundation.