Dr Kizana is a clinician/researcher at the Westmead Research Hub who divides his time between clinical cardiac electrophysiology and translational research. Dr Kizana is Co-Director of the Centre for Heart Research and Cardiac Gene Therapy Group Leader at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research, The University of Sydney. To dovetail his clinical and research activities, he leads a research group focused on the development novel therapies for cardiac disease. The group are developing AAV vectors as a platform technology for targeting human myocardium and using these in preclinical models of human disease to advance gene therapy for heart disease.

Andrew H. Baker is British Heart Foundation Chair of Translational Cardiovascular Sciences and Gustav Born Chair of Vascular Biology at the University of Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. He has received two ERC Advanced Grants and has secured over £60 million in research funding. Professor Baker has published more than 300 papers, supervised over 35 PhD students, and held senior leadership roles including Head of the Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences (2017–2025). He is currently Co-Director of the MRC/BHF Centre for Advanced Cardiac Therapies (2025–2031). His research focuses on vascular injury, repair, and regeneration, developing gene- and RNA-based therapies for cardiovascular disease, with work spanning discovery science through to clinical translation.

Dr. Ivy Chiang is a post-doctoral research scientist at Westmead Insitute for Medical Research under Prof. Eddy Kizana (Cardiac Gene Therapy Group, Centre for Heart Research) and an Adjunct Lecturer at University of Sydney. She completed her PhD at Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, followed by postdoctoral training at the Centenary Institute. Her current work focuses on identifying and characterising novel cardiotropic recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAVs), capable of effectively delivering therapeutic genes to the adult human heart. She develops advanced strategies, including innovative cardiac culture techniques and next-generation human cardiac-specific vectors, to support clinical translation.

Kim Mellor completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2011, and established the Cellular and Molecular Cardiology Laboratory at the University of Auckland. Her discovery bioscience delves into the pathophysiology of heart failure and diabetic cardiomyopathy, interrogating disease targets at tissue, cellular and subcellular levels.

Dr Nicholas Lam is Lab Head of the Cardiac Biology and Regeneration Group at the Heart Research Institute. He earned his BBiomedSc from the University of Melbourne, followed by a BSc(Hons) and PhD from Monash University, conducted at the Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute and Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute. He completed postdoctoral training at UT Southwestern Medical Center rising to the rank of Instructor, and became an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona before returning to Australia. An expert in cardiac regeneration and cardiomyocyte proliferation, Dr Lam has published in Circulation, Nature Metabolism, and Nature Cardiovascular Research as first/corresponding author. He is supported by a Robert Edward Gough Fellowship, NSW Health Cardiovascular Elite Postdoctoral Researcher Grant and Heart Foundation Vanguard Grant.

Lea Delbridge is Professor of Physiology at the University of Melbourne. As a PI of the Cardiac Research Consortium (ANZ) leading the Cardiac Phenomics group, her research targets fundamental mechanisms of cardiopathology, including diabetic cardiomyopathy, pericardial adiposity and forms of diastolic heart failure. She has pioneered the development of microscopy and mechanical techniques for cardiac and cardiomyocyte experimentation, with particular focus on understanding local cardiac paracrine signalling processes involving peptide and steroid mediators and regulation of cardiac muscle cell metabolic fuel usage. Her published work (~180 papers) appears in peak discipline and clinical journals. Professor Delbridge completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne, and had training positions at Dalhousie University (Halifax, Canada) and also at Loyola University (Chicago, USA) as an International Fellow of the American Heart Association. She was World Council Secretary General of the International Society of Heart Research (ISHR, 2016-2019, re-elected 2019-2022) and President of the Australasian ISHR Section 2007-2013. Professor Delbridge served as the Chair of the Scientific Program for the 2019 Beijing and the 2022 Berlin Triennial ISHR Congresses. At the University of Melbourne she has been appointed to senior roles in research training policy and governance and handles an active teaching portfolio.

James is a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow and Faculty and Lab Head at The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of genetic heart disease, with an emphasis on developing targeted therapies. His program integrates physiological analysis of human pluripotent stem cell models, cardiac organoids, and mice with advanced multi-omics approaches. His work has contributed to key discoveries in cardiac muscle biology and is supported by national and international funding.