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.

Prof. Dr Judith Sluimer is a global leader in vascular biology, known for pioneering research on vascular ageing and atherosclerosis. After training at Maastricht University and Columbia University, she built an award‑winning research program uncovering how macrophages and mesenchymal cells drive plaque destabilisation. Her team’s discoveries combine cutting‑edge multi‑omics, experimental models, and human studies. Backed by major grants including NWO Veni, Vidi, Vici, Marie Curie, Humboldt, and Dutch Heart Foundation fellowships, she collaborates internationally through Leducq and ERA‑CVD networks and holds affiliations with RWTH Aachen and the University of Edinburgh. As a Selby Fellow, she will visit Australia to share new insights and build research collaborations.

Associate Professor Daniel Donner is the founder and Head of the Translational Cardiology Centre at the Baker Institute. His research programs span drug and device development across heart attack and cardiac arrest, and he leads a research group of postdocs, cardiologists, surgeons, interventionalists, anaesthetists, intensivists, sonogragraphers, veterinarians and at least half a dozen PhD and Hons students.

Associate Professor Lim is a Principal Research Fellow and Head of the Cardiac Regeneration group at St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research (SVI) in Australia. He currently serves as a Council member of the ISHR (Australasian section), and is an active member of both the Australasian Society for Stem Cell Research (ASSCR) and the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance. Lim earned his PhD from University of Strathclyde (UK) in 2005 and completed a four-year post-doctoral fellowship at The Hatter Cardiovascular Institute, University College London. Lim joined the then O’Brien Institute in 2010, which later merged with SVI in 2015. As a translational research scientist, his work focuses on cardiometabolic diseases. His multidisciplinary research programme integrates stem cell biology, bioengineering, and pharmacology to develop innovative and translatable therapies for cardiometabolic diseases.

Prof Julie McMullen is the Deputy Director of the Heart Research Institute (HRI) in Syndey and leads the Heart Muscle Laboratory. Julie is recognised internationally for research that has defined the molecular distinction between physiological and pathological heart enlargement (cardiac hypertrophy) in preclinical models of health and disease. She discovered that a signalling pathway activated with exercise (IGF1-PI3K pathway) was critical for physiological hypertrophy (e.g. athlete’s heart) but not pathological hypertrophy (e.g. setting of hypertension). She subsequently developed novel therapies based on her findings in genetic mouse models involving adeno-associated virus (AAV) technology, RNA interference approaches, and small molecules. Other research interests include atrial fibrillation, heart-organ cross-talk and cancer therapy-induced cardiotoxicity. She is an Associate Editor of a new Nature Portfolio Journal-NPJ-Cardiovascular Health, and serves on several editorial boards. She is a Fellow of the AHA and ISHR, and is President of the ISHR-Australasian section.