Dr. Javid Moslehi is a cardiologist who specializes in the cardiovascular health of cancer patients, cancer survivors and patients with immunological or metabolic problems that affect cardiovascular health. He serves as chief of UCSF's cardio-oncology and immunology section. Moslehi's research focuses on how diseases of the cardiovascular system impact cancer patients and survivors. He is also interested in inflammatory heart conditions, such as myocarditis. Moslehi earned his medical degree from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. At Brigham and Women's Hospital, he completed a fellowship in cardiology and a postdoctoral research fellowship in oncology. His career includes directing cardio-oncology programs at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is the UCSF William Grossman Distinguished Professor in Cardiology.

Dr Holly Voges is a Team Leader in the Heart Regeneration Group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She obtained her PhD from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Queensland in 2019 where she used pluripotent stem cell models of the heart to investigate innate regenerative potential and the role of cell-cell interactions in heart maturation. Her first postdoc was in the Drug Discovery Facility at MCRI, specialising in high throughput drug screening and automation of pluripotent stem cell-derived organoids. In 2023, she joined the Heart Regeneration Laboratory at MCRI. Her research now focuses on bioengineering heart valve tissue from human pluripotent stem cells for improving understanding and treatment of valve disease. Her work has been recognised by multiple awards and distinctions including Australasian Society of Stem Cell Research Rising Star award (2024), Shirley E Freeman award for innovation from the Heart Foundation (2022), publication prizes from the International Society of Heart Research (2023), Stem Cells Australia (2017) and the Zhongmei Chen Young Award for Scientific Excellence from the International Society of Stem Cell Research (2024 and 2021).

Dr. McKinsey is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Denver, where he holds the Joseph and Rose LaConte Endowed Chair in Cardiology. Dr. McKinsey is also Associate Division Head for Translational Research and Founding Director of the university’s Consortium for Fibrosis Research & Translation (CFReT; www.cfret.org). He obtained a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, studying NF-kB signaling in the laboratory of Dr. Dean Ballard. Dr. McKinsey’s postdoctoral training was done in the laboratory of Dr. Eric Olson at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where he investigated transcriptional control of muscle development and growth. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Colorado, Dr. McKinsey spent eight years in industry (Myogen/Gilead), where he recruited and managed a team of scientists focused on small molecule drug discovery for cardiovascular/pulmonary/renal diseases. Current interests of Dr. McKinsey’s lab include defining signaling and epigenetic mechanisms that control heart failure.

Professor James is a general and interventional cardiologist at Westmead and co-director of the Centre of Heart Research at Westmead Institute for Medical Research/University of Sydney. His research program aims to develop new therapies for cardiac patients including those with myocardial infarction and heart failure.

Janna was awarded a Masters in Physiology from the University of Western Ontario in 1997 and her PhD in Reproductive and Developmental Sciences from the University of British Columbia in 2001. She has been funded as a fellow by the Heart Foundation (2004-13), NHMRC (2014-17), ARC (Future Fellow, 2018-2021) and now holds a NHMRC Investigator L2 (2026-30). She has authored >265 peer reviewed publications cited over 12,500 times with an h-Index of 48 (Scopus). Janna is Head of the Early Origins of Adult Health Research Group. She leads this dynamic team of MCRs, ECRs and HDRs that together seek answers about how babies grow in the womb and the impact on their future health with funding from the ARC (2019-26), NHMRC (2007-14, 2020-28), MRFF (2022-24), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2016-19), National Institutes of Health (2024-26) and Channel 7 (2020, 2023-26). She is a Fellow of the Cardiovascular Section of the American Physiological Society. She was inaugural Director of Health and Biomedical Innovation (2019-2024) at the University of South Australia and is now Deputy Director (2024-pres). She was awarded the Australian Physiological Society Medal Lecture in 2022, the Joan Mott Lecture Prize (Physiological Society UK) in 2024 and Aus Pharmaceutical Science Assoc Lecturer in 2026. She is Reviewing Editor for the Journal of Physiology and Editor of Themed Issues for the Journal of the Developmental Origins of Adult Health.

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.

Professor Ritchie [FISHR, FCSANZ; FAHA] is Professor and Head of Drug Discovery Biology (Theme Leader) and Head of Heart Failure Pharmacology in the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS), Monash University. Prof Ritchie is a cardiac pharmacologist internationally-recognised for her translational research focused on arresting the progression of heart failure. Her career spans discovery, preclinical & clinical research, enabled by long-term collaborations across Monash, the Victorian Heart Institute & the Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute. Her research focuses on three major types of heart failure (diabetes-associated heart failure, heart failure after MI, and HFpEF), seeking to identify optimal treatments for these, and whether sex-specific differences are evident. The research achievements of Professor Ritchie to date include >155 publications in leading international journals (>9300 citations, H index 52, GS) and continuous peer-reviewed funding since 1999.