Dr. Anna Krstic is currently a year 3 medical student at the University of Auckland and part-time research assistant for the Heart Mechanics Group at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI), with clinical collaborations at Auckland City Hospital. Dr. Krstic completed her PhD in the Muscle Cell Function Laboratory in the Department of Physiology. Her research investigated changes in calcium handling in hypertrophic heart disease. Calcium is a key regulator of contraction, and an impairment in calcium handling is a common pathology associated with ventricular dysfunction in heart disease. Dr. Krstic's research has investigated the structural changes (distribution and abundance of calcium handling proteins) and functional alterations (calcium fluxes) that occur at the cellular and subcellular level during the early stages of hypertrophy.
Dr. Timothy Jones is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Dr. Jones graduated with his PhD in 2022 from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Dr. Jones completed his postgraduate training in the Muscle Cell Function Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. Marie Ward, where he studied various aspects of excitation–contraction coupling with an emphasis on calcium handling in type 2 diabetes. Dr. Jones’ current research involves studying post-translational modifications of sarcomeric proteins and how they influence sex and age differences in cardiac health. Dr. Jones is currently an American Heart Association Post-Doctoral Fellow.
Dr. Power is currently a Research Fellow in Physiology at the University of Auckland. Dr. Power completed her PhD at the University of Auckland and then spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Otago. Her research expertise is in cardiac muscle cell physiology in health and disease, with a focus on the causes of arrhythmia, contractile dysfunction, and impaired mitochondrial energetics of the heart. Her research focus is to develop novel treatments that target the mitochondria as a next-generation therapy for heart dysfunction in heart failure and diabetes. Dr. Power is a member of the Early Career Investigator committee of the International Society for Heart Research, Australasian section.
Dr. Ward is currently a Senior Lecturer in Physiology and Principal Investigator of the Muscle Cell Function Research Group at the School of Medical Sciences, in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland. Dr. Ward's research expertise is in applying spectrofluorometric techniques to measure ionic fluxes in multicellular muscle preparations, isolated cells and intracellular organelles. These techniques are combined with high-resolution mitochondrial respirometry for the real-time analysis of OXPHOS and ROS and the immuno-histological examination of key proteins in fixed tissue using confocal and STED microscopy. Investigations are conducted on muscle preparations from animal models of disease and from multicellular human atrial tissue freshly obtained from consenting patients undergoing routine surgery. Dr. Ward is the Deputy Director of the New Zealand Society for Medical Sciences Inc. She is a member of the Physiological Society of New Zealand and the International Society for Heart Research, Australasian section.
