Professor David Allen has NHMRC Program Grant renewed

Congratulations to Professor David Allen on the succesful renewal of his NHMRC Program Grant "Molecular mechanisms of cardiac function and disease". Over $9million was awarded to Prof Robert Graham, Prof David Allen, A/Prof Diane Fatkin, Prof Michael Feneley, Prof Richard Harvey and Prof Peter MacDonald.

Adult-onset heart disease remains the leading cause of death and disability in our society, with almost 2 million Australians affected. Furthermore, structural heart malformations are the most common type of abnormality at birth and the leading cause of deaths in infants dying from non-infectious causes. Many of these problems are due to defects in the development, repair and/or function of heart muscle cells or cardiomyocytes. Thus, we propose to understand, in fine detail, cardiomyocyte as well as integrated heart development,biology, physiology and function as a prerequisite for the development of major advances in the prevention and treatment of these disorders.