Vascular and metabolic disorders

We research diabetes, blood and blood vessel disorders, heart disease and stroke.

We research diabetes, blood and blood vessel disorders, heart disease, and stroke.
We research diabetes, blood and blood vessel disorders, heart disease, and stroke.

Projects include investigations of risk factors and biomarkers of cardiovascular disease, blood-vessel inflammatory disorders, age-linked energy disorders, liver disorders and reproductive health and ageing.

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School of Public Health

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Professor Christopher Reid
Professor Reid is a cardiovascular epidemiologist and clinical trialist and a National Health Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Senior Research Fellow.  He leads the Monash and Curtin Centres of Clinical Research and Education in addition to a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Cardiovascular Outcomes Improvement (2016 – 2020).

School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences

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Professor Eric Moses

Professor Moses is a genetic epidemiologist currently appointed as Director of the Centre for Genetic Origins of Health and Disease (GOHaD) through Curtin and UWA. His current major research focus on cancer, cardiovascular disease, preeclampsia and schizophrenia involves whole genome sequencing in large population and family-based study designs.

Professor John L Yovich

Professor Yovich is a world-renowned expert in human reproduction and function, and a pioneer in assisted reproductive technologies, producing the first IVF infant in Western Australia (1982).

Associate Professor Mario Soares
Associate Professor Soares is a physician-scientist with a formal grounding in human nutrition and physiology. He has a long standing interest in human energy metabolism, specifically the measurement of resting and postprandial metabolic events as they pertain to energy balance, insulin sensitivity and endothelial function.

Associate Professor Cyril Mamotte
Associate Professor Mamotte is a Teaching and Research academic, and a Clinical Biochemist with 24 years experience in diagnostics. His main research interest is in the broad area of lipid metabolism, specifically the pleitropic effects of lipids and lipid modulators (e.g. cholesterol lowering drugs) on diverse pathophysiological processes, including pancreatic beta cell dysfunction and diabetes, immune dysregulation and heart disease. He also conducts translation studies in the application of genetic tests.

Dr Ross Graham
Dr Graham is a Senior Lecturer in Molecular Genetics. His research involves investigating the role of iron in the liver and how it intersects with other metabolic processes, including lipid and glucose metabolism. The aim of his research is to better define the disease processes underlying non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, the hepatic manifestation of obesity and the common genetic iron-loading disorder, haemochromatosis.

Dr Kevin Keane
Dr Keane is an expert in biochemistry and cell metabolism, and his research involves the application of this knowledge to reproductive medicine and metabolic health. He is mainly interested in how nutrients affect cell metabolism, and how these processes are dysfunctional in chronic disease, including disorders associated with fertility.

Dr Nina Tirnitz-Parker
Dr Tirnitz-Parker heads the Liver Disease and Regeneration Group. Their research investigates how liver progenitor/stem cells (LPCs) regulate wound healing, fibrogenesis and carcinogenesis in progressive chronic liver injury, with particular emphasis on cytokine/chemokine signalling pathways. Recent studies have been focussed on LPCs as regulatory cells in fibrosis and tumour niche development, or as potential cancer stem cells in hepatocellular carcinoma/cholangiocarcinoma.

Dr Rima Caccetta
Dr Caccetta is interested in drug discovery from plants.  She is currently pursuing isolation of active compounds from a Mediterranean herb to treat diabetes mellitus.

Dr Natalie Ward  

Dr Ward is investigating novel treatment options and prevention of cardiovascular disease, including the development and pathogenesis of vascular dysfunction and atherosclerosis, the role of diet, dietary components and the gut microbiome, and the progression of cardiovascular risk factors to disease.

Dr Rodrigo Carlessi
Dr Carlessi is an early career researcher investigating various aspects of pancreatic β-cell dysfunction in diabetes, including altered metabolic and signalling responses to nutritional and physiological stressors as well as therapeutic drugs.