Cardiac bioengineer Professor James Hudson from QIMR Berghofer has received the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences Jian Zhou Medal for his transformative research advancing understanding of heart disease and developing new treatments.
Professor Hudson was presented with the medal at the Academy’s gala dinner in Adelaide on Thursday 24 October 2024.
The AAHMS Jian Zhou Medal was founded by Emeritus Professor Ian Frazer AC, in honour of his cervical cancer vaccine co-inventor, Professor Jian Zhou. It is awarded annually to recognise rising stars in Australian health and medical science.
“There are a lot of fantastic high-quality researchers in Australia, so to be recognised among the country’s leading scientists by winning this award is truly humbling,” Professor Hudson said.
Professor Hudson and his team at QIMR Berghofer’s Cardiac Bioengineering Laboratory create tiny living and beating model human heart muscles to help unravel the complex workings of the heart and identify new treatments for heart disease.
He is internationally recognised for improving these cardiac organoids to more closely mimic the human heart, providing increasingly accurate miniature 3D models to study disease and screen new drugs.
Other career highlights include using the miniature heart models to find a compound that could regenerate damaged heart tissue, and identifying drugs that can block heart failure caused by inflammation.
Professor Hudson is also working on an “encyclopaedia” of the heart to provide a detailed map of how this vital organ works, and help decipher the complexities of cardiovascular disease to improve outcomes for patients and reduce the burden of Australia’s leading cause of death.
“Heart failure and irregular heartbeat (cardiac arrhythmia) can both damage heart tissue and lead to death, but the way this happens is very different in different patients.
“The goal of our ‘cardiopedia’ is to decipher this complexity using our cardiac organoids, so we can eventually treat patients with drugs that are truly matched to their individual need,” he said.
The Jian Zhou Medal is made possible by a generous donation from the Frazer Family Foundation and the medal is designed and minted by the Royal Australian Mint. Interventional cardiologist Professor James Chong was also awarded the Jian Zhou Medal this year.
Get in touch with our media team
Professor James Hudson with the Jian Zhou Medal and Emeritus Professor Ian Frazer & AAHMS President Professor Louise Baur