Author: CSANZ Admin

Ms Ada Lo at ESC 2022

Ada Lo is the lead sonographer at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Cardiology Echo Lab.

I submitted two abstracts of my PhD projects to ESC 2022 and they were accepted as moderated posters.

My job at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Cardiology Echo Lab involves training student sonographers and cardiology advanced trainees. I am also heavily involved in research projects and education.

I submitted two abstracts of my PhD project to ESC 2022, and they were accepted as moderated posters: the first moderated poster presented was “Use of advanced echocardiographic modalities to discriminate preclinical HCM mutation carriers from non-carriers”. The second, was entitled “Use of advanced echocardiographic deformation measures to delineate cause of pathological left ventricular hypertrophy: value of a multiparametric approach”.

This was my first time to attend the world class conference, ESC 2022 Congress, and the experience was fantastic. However, I did find that many talks that I attended at the ESC had already been presented in our own CSANZ Annual Scientific Meeting just two weeks prior. I really want to congratulate the organizing committee of our own CSANZ who give us a world class annual meeting.

I was also invited to present in the CSANZ Highlights session on the second day of this conference. It was a great privilege to present together with several experts in Cardiology from Australia. I really enjoyed the interesting case presentations and other moderated abstracts presented from centres around the world. It gave me new insights of how some new measurements can be of use in either research or clinical aspects.

Finally, I want to thank the CSANZ committee for the sponsorship of my trip.

View Ada’s abstracts here on ESC 365.

Ms Khalia Primer (SA) at AHA 2022

Khalia Primer is a final year University of Adelaide PhD candidate, based at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.

With the support of the Cardiac Society’s Travelling Fellowship, she attended the 2022 AHA Scientific Sessions conference which was held in Chicago from the 5-7 November.

Khalia presented some key findings from her PhD project in the ATVB Elaine W. Raines Early Career Award session, which also included presenters from Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

“It was such a fantastic experience to present my work in this forum. I received a lot of extremely useful feedback from the ATVB Early Career committee who organised the session, and it was wonderful to meet the other presenters as well.

I presented my work on how diabetes affects endothelial cell metabolism, and on a novel gene therapy our lab has created to augment metabolic reprogramming and improve angiogenesis in ischaemic disease.

I’m extremely grateful to my supervisors, Associate Professor Christina Bursill and Dr Joanne Tan for encouraging me to attend the conference, and for all their support throughout my PhD. Thank you also to the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand for their support in assisting me to attend the AHA conference in November.

I’m definitely hoping to go to Adelaide for the ASM next year! I’m moving to Melbourne for medical school but I always love the CSANZ meetings so I’m really hoping to stay involved.”

See Khalia’s abstract:
“Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Kinase 4 is a Novel Regulator of Endothelial Cell Mitochondrial Respiration in Diabetes-Impaired Angiogenesis: Implications for Preventing Diabetic Vascular Complications” in AHA’s Journal, Circulation

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.146.suppl_1.10357

Dr Adeel Khoja is a PhD Student (Year-3) at Faculty of Health & Medical Sciences, Adelaide Medical School
The University of Adelaide.

As a final year PhD student, it was an amazing experience to attend and present at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2022 held from November 04 to 07, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois, USA and that too after almost 3 years.

My moderated digital poster presentation entitled “Pregnancy Complications Are Associated With Premature Coronary Artery Disease – Linking Three South Australian Cohorts” was held on Monday, November 07, 2022 in the Multi-Generational Cardiovascular Risk: Pregnancy and Childhood session. It was an honour to present at the flagship cardiology conference and to receive meaningful feedback and suggestions from some of the great experts in the field. This unique data linkage project merging three South Australian registries forms a major component of my PhD thesis and it was the first time I presented at an international conference as part of my PhD candidature.

In addition, I also got a chance to meet with Prof Salim Virani who works in the area of cardiovascular research at the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Houston, Texas. We had a good discussion regarding premature coronary heart disease registry at BCM, Houston exploring ways to compare it with the South Australian registry and later with the South- East Asian registries (including Pakistan and India). We also had some discussion on post-doctoral opportunities in USA particularly at BCM, Houston which he was aware of and highlighted potential opportunities. I also attended some nice poster sessions on epidemiology and public health, rapid-fire presentations on mHealth and community based interventions on achieving lifestyle goals and evidence-based clinical sessions. Overall, it was an amazing experience to be part of such a prestigious cardiology conference.

View Adeel’s abstract here in AHA’s Journal, Circulation