Sarah J. Glastras is a Staff Specialist in Endocrinology at the Royal North
Shore Hospital, Sydney, and a Researcher at the University of Sydney and Consultant
Endocrinologist at the Northern Sydney Endocrine Centre. Her research interests
lie in the area of metabolic dysregulation, obesity and complications of
diabetes. Her aim is to determine the molecular mechanisms that underlie the
contribution of obesity and developmental programming towards end-organ damage
with a particular focus on chronic kidney disease. Her research interests
further comprise the contribution of the maternal in utero environment towards
the future risk of offspring developing complex conditions, such as diabetes and
chronic kidney disease. In addition, she is a Clinical Investigator on a large
phase III clinical trial, which is examining the effect of GLP-1 receptor
stimulation using liraglutide on bodyweight, cardiac and neurological function
in obese individuals with diabetes. She has also investigated the role of GLP-1
receptor stimulation in mitigating detrimental effects of obesity and insulin
resistance in the kidneys. She serves as a member of the Australasian Diabetes
in Pregnancy Society, Australian Diabetes Society and Australian and New
Zealand Obesity Society.
Gemma Figtree is a Professor in Medicine at the University of Sydney.
She co-leads the Cardiovascular Theme for Sydney Health Partners, a NHMRC
Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre and is the Chair of the
University of Sydney’s multi-disciplinary Cardiovascular Initiative. She
completed her Ph.D. at Oxford University in 2002 and was supported by a Rhodes
Scholarship, making fundamental discoveries regarding estrogen’s actions and
factors regulating NO/redox balance in the cardiovascular system. She is committed
to improving the care for heart attack patients by using her knowledge of
molecular and cellular biology to develop methods of identifying those at
the highest risks of adverse outcomes and discovering novel therapies to prevent and
treat various medical events, which is inspired by her clinical work as an interventional
cardiologist. She has dedicated herself throughout her career to unravelling key
mechanisms underlying the susceptibility and responses to heart attacks, with studies
extending from the bench to large cohort studies and clinical trials. She
serves as a member of the Editorial Board of leading international
cardiovascular journals, including Circulation and Cardiovascular Research, as
well as being a founding editorial board member for Redox Biology and an
Associate Editor for Heart, Lung and Circulation.
