AUSTRALASIAN DIABETES CONGRESS 2018
Stephanie Amiel

Prof Stephanie Amiel

ADS Plenary Speaker

Prof Amiel is a senior clinician and experimental medicine researcher at King’s College Hospital and King’s College London in the UK. She trained at Guy’s Hospital in London and studied under both Prof Harry Keen, leader of the UK team that developed insulin pump therapy, and Profs Robert Sherwin and Bill Tamborlane, inventors of insulin pump therapy in the US.  She has continued to focus, clinically and academically, on reducing risk of hypoglycaemia in diabetes therapies.

With colleagues across the UK, she developed the UK’s DAFNE programme, and locally, the King’s islet transplant programme – the King’s Diabetes Service currently supports over 700 pump and 150 sensor users. Prof Amiel’s current research focuses on the role of the brain in the control of metabolism (hypoglycaemia and insulin resistance); the impact of ethnicity on metabolism and the further understanding of hypoglycaemia in diabetes. She is currently running a JDRF-funded randomised controlled trial of a novel intervention to prevent hypoglycaemia based on her research. Prof Amiel has published widely. She chaired the 2015 revision of the UK’s NICE guidelines for the management of type 1 diabetes in adults and continues to work with charities and other bodies to improve management of type 1 diabetes.

Dr Helen Barrett

Dr Helen Barrett

ADS Joint Plenary with ADIPS

Dr Helen Barrett is an Obstetric Physician and Endocrinologist and is Director of Endocrinology & Diabetes at the Mater Hospital, Brisbane. She is a Senior Lecturer within the Faculty of Medicine at The University of Queensland. Dr Barrett has a strong interest in improving the outcomes of complicated pregnancy, with a particular focus on maternal obesity and diabetes in pregnancy.

Her PhD examined the role of maternal lipids and placental lipid processing in the outcomes of pregnancy for women with diabetes. Dr Barrett currently holds an NHMRC Early Career Research Fellowship and her current research continues to explore maternal and placental metabolism in complicated pregnancy, with emphasis on the role of the microbiome.

Linda Beeney

Dr Linda Beeney, PhD

ADEA Plenary Speaker

Dr Linda Beeney, PhD (Medicine, USyd) is Principal Investigator of the ReMinD Program (Researching Media in Diabetes) and holds a teaching & research position as Honorary Associate with Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney. She completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology and her PhD in Medicine at The University of Sydney as an NHMRC Scholar, was awarded an NHMRC Travelling Fellowship and completed a Post-doctoral Fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

Dr Beeney’s current research is focused on experimental studies of diabetes language, analysis of media messages about diabetes and framing of complications risk communication, thanks to funding support from the ADEA Research Foundation, Medical Psychology Services, ACU and The University of the Sunshine Coast.

Dr Beeney has published numerous academic papers from her research collaborations in the areas of diabetes psychology, psycho-oncology and emergency medicine.

Dr Beeney has a thriving private practice as a Diabetes Psychologist and is the Director of Medical Psychology Services, a consultancy specializing in medical illness research and industry collaboration.

Professor Alex Brown

Professor Alex Brown

ADS Symposium Speaker

Leader, Aboriginal Research Unit

Professor Alex Brown is an Aboriginal medical doctor and public health researcher from Australia. Alex has established an extensive and unique research program focused on chronic disease in vulnerable communities, with a particular focus on outlining and overcoming health disparities. He leads projects encompassing epidemiology, psychosocial determinants of chronic disease, mixed methods health services research, and trials of pharmacological and non-pharmacological chronic disease interventions.

In July 2012, Alex joined the South Australian health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) to develop and lead a state-wide Aboriginal health research program and was appointed as research Chair of Aboriginal health at the University of South Australia. He was recently admitted to the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

Dr Anna Calkin

Dr Anna Calkin

ADS Symposium Speaker

Dr Anna Calkin is a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow and Head of the Lipid Metabolism and Cardiometabolic Disease Laboratory at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. She leads a research program that focuses on preventing the onset of cardiometabolic diseases driven by excess lipid accumulation, including cardiomyopathy, myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis and hepatic steatosis.

In addition, she has an interest in identifying novel regulators of lipid metabolism using a discovery platform she established with collaborators, which combines cutting edge proteomics and lipidomics across 100+ strains of genetically diverse mice. Prior to this, Anna undertook post-doctoral studies at UCLA where she defined the E3 ligase, IDOL, as an evolutionarily conserved mechanism for the regulation of lipid metabolism and demonstrated its importance in regulating cholesterol levels in humans. She also developed a mouse model of atherosclerosis, currently available from Jackson Laboratories.

Kirrily Chambers

Kirrily Chambers

ADEA Workshop Speaker

Kirrily is a HMR and DMAS accredited pharmacist and CDE. After becoming the first credentailled diabetes educator pharmacist in Australia in January 2009, she opened a private diabetes practice in the Adelaide Hills (Diabetes Education and Management). Her passion is insulin pump therapy, insulin initiation and titration and mental health in chronic diabetes management. In 2016 Kirrily was awarded the ADEA National Credentailled Diabetes Educator of the Year.

Tammie Choi

Dr Tammie Choi

ADEA Symposium Speaker

Dr Tammie Choi is a cross-cultural researcher at Monash University, Victoria and a community dietitian at Carrington Health, Box Hill. Over the years, Tammie has been delivering dietetic service in Cantonese, Mandarin and English for the Chinese Australian community by regularly speaking on Chinese radio, delivering individual and group education.

Tammie’s research interest is on enhancing cultural tailored healthcare practices. She completed her doctoral thesis on promoting lifestyle changes for Chinese Australian with type 2 diabetes, exploring an alternative diabetes education paradigm to effectively promote lifestyle changes in the Chinese population. Tammie has also been successful in the first round of ADEA research funding to pilot a Chinese diabetes group-education based on her researched paradigm. Tammie has 6 first-author publications on this topic.

Eleanor Danek

Eleanor Danek

NADC Speaker

Eleanor Danek is a final year medical student at Monash University with a passion for diabetes research and Quality Improvement. She undertook a Bachelor of Medical Science (Hons) in 2017 with a research focus on Audit and Feedback as a strategy for Quality Improvement in diabetes care.

In 2017, Eleanor collaborated with the National Association of Diabetes Centres to develop updated Accreditation Standards (Accreditation 3.0).  NADC Accreditation 3.0 functions to incentivise and recognise high quality, evidence-based care at diabetes centres nationwide. Eleanor currently works as a Clinical Research Fellow for the Australian National Diabetes Audit (ANDA). Her role involves integrating new research into ANDA practice with a view to optimising the effectiveness of ANDA benchmarking reports for Quality Improvement.

Prof Elizabeth Davies

Prof Elizabeth Davies

ADS Symposium Speaker

Elizabeth Davis is an Australian Clinical Researcher in Paediatric Diabetes. She currently Co-Directs an integrated Clinical and Research Program with the aim of improving the lives of children with diabetes.  The current focus of this program is nutrition, exercise and technology.

Dr Davis currently holds appointments as a Clinical Professor at the School of Paediatric and Child Health, University of Western Australia, Director of the Diabetes and Obesity clinical service at Perth Children’s Hospital for Children, and head of the Chronic Disease research focus area at Telethon Kids Institute. She is the immediate past president of the Australasian Paediatric Endocrinology Group.

Dr. Barbora de Courten

Dr Barbora de Courten

ADS Awards Lecturer

Dr Barbora de Courten an associate professor and National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow at Monash University and consultant physician at Department of Diabetes and Vascular Medicine at Monash Health. She has a PhD in epidemiology, extensive training in clinical trials (NIH) and is a Master of Public Health. She has expertise across the translational research continuum from human mechanistic studies to clinical trials and public health interventions through to practice.

Her vision is to establish new strategies for prevention and management of chronic diseases, specifically obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Her goal is that her research findings will ultimately translate into treatment guidelines, reduced diabetes and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and reduced health-care costs. She is passionate about research into holistic approaches to prevention of chronic diseases by promoting health as she believes this will impact not only health of individuals but also be beneficial to our society and environment we live in.

She has worked in a variety of international settings, as reflected by her appointments at prestigious institutions in the USA (NIH), Australia (Baker IDI, Monash University) and Europe (University of Copenhagen and Steno Diabetes Centre). She enjoys an active national and international research network. She is an author on over 116 publications and more than 200 presentations at national and international meetings. She is on NHMRC and Diabetes Australia Research Trust grant review panels, the Lead Fellow for Continuing Professional Development on the Adult Medicine Division Council for Royal Australasian College of Physicians and on organizing committee for Australian Diabetes Society.

David-Dunstan

Prof David Dunstan PhD

ADS Symposium Speaker

David is Head of the Physical Activity laboratory at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne and is an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and Baker Fellow. He also holds the position of Professor within the Centre for Exercise and Nutrition at the Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University. His research focuses on the role of physical activity and sedentary behaviour in the prevention and management of chronic diseases.

He has published over 200 peer reviewed papers, including publications in high impact journals such as Circulation, Diabetes Care and Diabetologia. Over the past 15 years David has extensive media interest in his research including interviews with ABC Catalyst, SBS Insight, 60 Minutes Australia, National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal, CNN, the New York Times and the LA Times.

Nathan Efron

Prof Nathan Efron AC, DSc, PhD, BScOptom, FAAO (Dip CCLRT), FCCLSA, FACO

ADS Symposium Speaker

Nathan Efron is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Optometry and Vision Science at the Queensland University of Technology, and Editor of the journal Clinical and Experimental Optometry. He lectures extensively world-wide on his two key areas of research – the ocular response to contact lens wear, and ophthalmic markers of diabetic neuropathy. He has published over 1000 scientific papers, abstracts and textbook chapters, and has written/edited 7 books that have appeared in a total of 19 editions and foreign translations.

Professor Efron has won numerous research awards, including the British Contact Lens Association Gold Medal (2001), the American Academy of Optometry’s Glenn Fry Award (2010), Optometry Australia’s H Barry Collin Research Medal (2015) and the Ruben Medal of the International Society for Contact Lens Research (2017).  In 2015, Professor Efron was made a Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia.

Barbara Fazekas de St Groth

Prof Barbara Fazekas de St Groth

ADS Symposium Speaker

Prof Barbara Fazekas de St Groth is the founding Director of the Ramaciotti Facility for Human Systems Biology at the University of Sydney. She trained in medicine worked as a Professorial Intern and Resident at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney before completing a PhD with JFAP Miller at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne. She then undertook postdoctoral training with Mark Davis at Stanford University.

She returned to Sydney to set up a laboratory at the Centenary Institute, where she established an international reputation for her work using T cell receptor transgenic mouse models and multiparameter flow cytometry to define fundamental immune processes. Her current research involves the use of highly multi-parametric mass cytometry to define human immune signatures that predict individual patient disease profiles and responses to cancer immunotherapy.

Prof Eva Feldman

Prof Eva Feldman

ADS Plenary Speaker

Professor Eva Feldman is a clinician-scientist whose career focuses on understanding the neurological complications of obesity and diabetes. With 25 years of continuous funding from NIH, she is Principal Investigator on 3 multi-institutional grants to complete comprehensive transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic phenotyping of obese and diabetic children and adults, with the goal to understand the pathogenesis of neurological complications, particularly diabetic neuropathy.

She also oversees 5 NIH grants supporting basic scientific research employing cellular and murine models of metabolic injury. Her findings are published in 375 manuscripts, 70 book chapters, and she has authored 4 books. Professor Feldman served as President of the American Neurological Association and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She has received lifetime achievement awards from the ADA, JDRF and the Endocrine Society. In 2016, she was named the National Physician of the Year for Clinical Excellence among the Best Doctors in America.

Rachel Freeman

Rachel Freeman

ADEA Masterclass Speaker

APD CDE

Rachel Freeman is the Professional Services Manager at ADEA. Rachel represents ADEA on the Early Life Nutrition Coalition, a group that has been formed to promote education about the first 1000 days and the importance of early life nutrition for the prevention of chronic disease in later life. Rachel has a background in dietetics and is a credentialled diabetes educator. She managers the credentialling and mentoring program at ADEA as well as the education programs and review of various clinical guidelines.

Professor Sally Green

Professor Sally Green

ADS Symposium Speaker

Professor Sally Green is Co-Director of Cochrane Australia and a Professorial Fellow and Graduate Research Co-ordinator in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine from Monash University and clinical qualifications in Physiotherapy.

In addition to her leadership positions in Cochrane, Sally has several competitively funded research projects in knowledge translation, aiming to improve health outcomes by investigating the best ways to inform clinical practice and policy with synthesised research evidence. She is a member of Cochrane’s Editorial Board and co-chairs Cochrane’s international Knowledge Translation Advisory Group. She is a member of NHMRC’s Synthesis and Translation of Research Evidence (STORE) advisory committee.

Dr Jeremy Grimshaw

Dr Jeremy Grimshaw

ADS Plenary Speaker

Dr Jeremy Grimshaw MBChB, PhD is an internationally leading implementation researcher whose research focuses on the evaluation of interventions to disseminate and implement evidence-based practice.  He is a Senior Scientist, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, a Full Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Health Knowledge Transfer and Uptake.

His research focusses on systematic reviews of interventions to improve healthcare delivery and healthcare systems, large scale field evaluations (usually cluster randomised trials) of dissemination and implementation interventions and the use of behavioural approaches to optimise dissemination and implementation interventions. He has undertaken a landmark series of systematic reviews of diabetes quality improvement interventions as well as primary implementation research in diabetes. He has over 540 publications and a h-index of 88.

Yehuda Handelsman

Yehuda Handelsman, MD, FACP, FNLA, FASPC, MACE

ADS Meet the Professor

Yehuda Handelsman, MD, FACP, FNLA, FASPC, MACE is an endocrinologist in private practice, Medical Director & Principal Investigator of the Metabolic Institute of America. A Master of the American College of Endocrinology, Fellow American Society of Preventive Cardiology, of the American College of Physicians and The National lipid Association He is Board Member American Association for Preventive Cardiology, Chair of the AACE Lipid & CV Health Disease network.

Past president of the American College of Endocrinology, AACE & the Pacific Lipid Association, Chair Annual World Congress on Insulin Resistance, DM & CVD, the Heart in Diabetes and the International Lipid Forum. He published over 110 original research, review papers, editorials and books’ chapters, a recent Book “Clinical Management of Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes and Obesity”; and is also an author of the AACE Diabetes and Lipids Guidelines

Anthony-Hanley

Prof Anthony Hanley, PhD

ADS Symposium Speaker

Dr. Hanley received his PhD in Epidemiology in 2000 from the University of Toronto.  He subsequently completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Texas Health Sciences Centre in San Antonio, Texas.  From 2002-2005, Dr. Hanley was a Research Scientist at the Leadership Sinai Centre for Diabetes at Mt. Sinai Hospital, Toronto.  Dr. Hanley is currently a faculty member in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto, where he teaches, conducts research, and supervises graduate students.

His research is supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Canadian Diabetes Association, Dairy Farmers of Canada, and the University of Toronto Banting and Best Diabetes Centre.  He held a Canada Research Chair in Diabetes Epidemiology from 2006-2016.

Dr. Hanley has established an innovative program of research in the metabolic and nutritional epidemiology of type 2 diabetes and its underlying physiological traits, including insulin resistance and pancreatic beta cell dysfunction. His work focuses on longitudinal cohorts of understudied high-risk populations, including Indigenous Canadians, those of African and Hispanic origin, and non-diabetic subjects who are otherwise at very high risk of progression to diabetes, including those with pre-diabetes or the metabolic syndrome.

Collette Hooper

Collette Hooper

ADEA Workshop Speaker

Collette Hooper is employed by Country Health SA (CHSA) Local Health Network as a Nurse Practitioner (NP) – Diabetes Service. Collette commenced her employment as a Clinical Practice Consultant – Diabetes Service with CHSA in July 2014 but was reclassified following credentialing as a NP with prescribing by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and CHSA in June 2016.

Prior to 2014, Collette had been employed as a Clinical Service Coordinator, Diabetes Service at Flinders Medical Centre, Southern Adelaide Local Health Network for over 16years.  Collette holds a position as an Associate Lecturer at Flinders University, South Australia and has been credentialled with the Australian Diabetes Educators Association (ADEA) since 1998 and an ADEA member since 1995. Collette was awarded ADEA Fellowship in 2017.

Collette interests are type 1 diabetes in children, young people and adults and diabetes in pregnancy (pre-existing and gestational diabetes mellitus). Collette seeks to engage the person with diabetes and/or their family/carer to identify their values, preferences and expectations. By sharing the decisions, addressing individual needs and clinical risks, she aims to provide best practice in the diabetes clinical assessment, treatment and advice.

James Hudson

Dr James Hudson

ADS Symposium Speaker

Dr James Hudson is the Group Leader for the Organoid Research Lab at QIMR Berghofer. He completed a double major in Chemical and Biological Engineering and subsequently completed his PhD on cardiac tissue engineering at The University of Queensland in 2011. He was then awarded a German Cardiology Society postdoctoral fellowship with Prof Wolfram-Hubertus Zimmermann in Germany, one of the world’s most prominent cardiac tissue engineering researchers. In 2013 Dr Hudson returned to Australia on a NHMRC ECF and is currently an NHMRC CDF and National Heart Foundation Future Leaders Fellow for which he won the Paul Korner award.

Over his career Dr Hudson’s work has focused on the use of stem cell-derived heart cells for tissue engineering applications and is now working together with academic and industry partners discover new therapeutic targets for heart disease. For this research program Dr Hudson recently received the Centenary Institute Medical Innovation Award (2017).

Rachel Huxley

Prof Rachel Huxley

ADS Symposium Speaker

Professor Rachel Huxley is Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for the College of Science, Health and Engineering at La Trobe University, a position that she has occupied since January 2018 and where she is also Co-Director of the recently established Research Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Disease.  She currently holds a Visiting Professorial Appointment at the University of Oxford where she studied (1992-2001,) and she is also an Honorary Professor at the George Institute for Global Health (University of New South Wales).

Her research is primarily focused on the determination and quantification of major and modifiable risk factors for chronic disease and sex and ethnic disparities in these relationships. She has published more than 180 research articles, has a Google Scholar H-index of 62 and > 18,000 citations. She currently holds several competitive NHMRC and Heart Foundation research grants in areas related to women’s health, obesity and diabetes.

Dr Shilpa Jesudason

ADEA Symposium Speaker

Dr Jesudason is a Senior Clinical Lecturer, University of Adelaide; Staff Specialist Nephrologist in General Nephrology, Transplantation and Obstetric Nephrology, at the Central and Northern Adelaide Renal and Transplantation Service (CNARTS) Royal Adelaide Hospital.

She trained at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Flinders Medical Centre and St Mary’s Hospital Transplant Unit in London before returning in 2004 to undertake PhD studies in transplantation immunology at the Basil Hetzel Institute, Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Her current clinical and research interests include pregnancy-related issues in women with renal disease, including all stages of CKD, dialysis and transplant patients, living kidney donors and women with hypertension. She also chairs the CNARTS Clinical Research Group which leads a range of studies addressing patient-centred outcomes in CKD and dialysis patients.

Dr Jesudason has been the Clinical Director at Kidney Health Australia since June 2017.

Professor Linong Ji

ADS/ADEA Joint Plenary Speaker

Dr Jesudason is a Senior Clinical Lecturer, University of Adelaide; Staff Specialist Nephrologist in General Nephrology, Transplantation and Obstetric Nephrology, at the Central and Northern Adelaide Renal and Transplantation Service (CNARTS) Royal Adelaide Hospital.

She trained at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Flinders Medical Centre and St Mary’s Hospital Transplant Unit in London before returning in 2004 to undertake PhD studies in transplantation immunology at the Basil Hetzel Institute, Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Her current clinical and research interests include pregnancy-related issues in women with renal disease, including all stages of CKD, dialysis and transplant patients, living kidney donors and women with hypertension. She also chairs the CNARTS Clinical Research Group which leads a range of studies addressing patient-centred outcomes in CKD and dialysis patients.

Dr Jesudason has been the Clinical Director at Kidney Health Australia since June 2017.

Dr Renae Kirkham

ADS Symposium Speaker

Dr Renae Kirkham is an early career researcher in the Wellbeing and Preventable Chronic Disease Division at Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, Northern Territory. Supported by a HOT NORTH Fellowship, she leads mixed-methods research to better understand the experiences of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with Type 2 diabetes across Northern Australia. Renae is also involved in the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland Diabetes in Pregnancy Partnership where she specifically focuses on enhancing systems to improve health outcomes for women and their infants early in the life course. Renae is also a senior lecturer in Qualitative Research Methods at Menzies School of Health Research.

Richard Kitching

Prof Richard Kitching

ADS Symposium Speaker

Professor A Richard Kitching, Monash Centre for Inflammatory Diseases, Department of Medicine, Monash University and Departments of Nephrology and Paediatric Nephrology, Monash Health.

Richard Kitching is an academic nephrologist-scientist whose research is focussed of autoimmune kidney disease, from basic mechanisms of loss of tolerance to effector responses, with a view to using more targeted therapies for these diseases. He holds Monash University and Monash Heath appointments and is the director of the Monash University Centre for Inflammatory Diseases. He heads the Monash Health Vasculitis Clinic and is Co-Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology Research Advisory Committee. His research is funded by NHMRC Project Grants, an NHMRC grant within a European Union Horizon 20/20 Consortium and an NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence. His publications include papers in Nature, Nature Medicine, PNAS, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, The Journal of Experimental Medicine, Nature Communications, Blood, J The Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and Kidney International.

Prof Rohit Kulkarni

Prof Rohit Kulkarni

ADS Plenary Speaker

Rohit N. Kulkarni, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Senior Investigator and Co-Head of the Section on Islet Cell and Regenerative Biology at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Principal Faculty at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Boston and Associate Member of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, USA and currently holds the inaugural Margaret A. Congleton Endowed Chair.

Dr. Kulkarni received his medical degree from Bangalore Medical College and continued at St. John’s Medical College where he started research under the supervision of Prof. PS Shetty MD. Subsequently, he worked at Hammersmith Hospital as an Honorary Clinical Registrar while also working on his PhD (Biochemistry) from the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (University of London) under the mentorship of Sir Steve Bloom FRS. Dr. Kulkarni then undertook a Post-doctoral Fellowship in Cell Physiology in the lab of C. Ronald Kahn MD at the Joslin Diabetes Center. In 1999 Dr. Kulkarni was recruited to the Faculty at Joslin Diabetes Center and Department of Medicine (Harvard Medical School, Boston). Dr. Kulkarni is a recipient of the Endocrine Society’s Ernst Oppenheimer Award for Outstanding Research and is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. Dr. Kulkarni is a recipient of the James H. Horner Distinguished Visiting Professorship, the Endocrine Society’s Visiting Professorship in Endogenous Pancreas Preservation, is a Takeda Visiting Scholar, and delivered the Merck Frosst Distinguished Lectureship, the Harlan G. Wood Annual Memorial Lecture, the Prof. M.M.S. Ahuja Oration and the Dr. H.J. Mehta Oration.

His lab is interested in understanding the mechanisms that underlie pancreatic islet cell regeneration with a focus on growth factor signaling, induced pluripotent stem cells and inter-organ crosstalk.

Shannon Lin

Shannon Shanshan Lin

ADEA Symposium Speaker

Shannon Lin, a dietitian and a diabetes educator who speaks Mandarin, Cantonese and English. She has over 10 years of experience in Chinese diabetes in Australia. She developed and expanded one of the most comprehensive multilingual diabetes education resources in Australia (Diabetes: what you need to know) into 12 different languages. Meanwhile, she co-developed, translated and delivered the 1st Australian multicultural diabetes prevention program (Sydney Diabetes Prevention Program) in Chinese.

Her work and expertise in CALD communities has been highly recognised both nationally and internationally. She was the recipient for the Travel Fellowship Award at the International Congress of Endocrinology in 2016 and awarded the Travel Scholarship in health literacy by the Academy of Communication in Healthcare in the USA in 2018. In recent years, she has been invited back to China to promote the diabetes education at various conferences and hospitals. In Sept this year, she will again present her work in Chinese diabetes education at the national Chinese diabetes education conference in China. Shannon has worked for Diabetes NSW and ACT for 10 years, and now has expanded her passion into another culturally diverse community – the aboriginal community in Sydney, while studying her PhD in health literacy and health translation in Chinese diabetes. She has written for two book chapters in diabetes health translation, which are all under the publication now.

Angie Llewellyn

Angie Llewellyn

ADEA Masterclass Speaker

Angie Llewellyn is a credentialled diabetes educator with over 23 years experience in all areas and aspects of diabetes. This has included running a young adult transition clinic at Westmead, setting up a chronic disease programme in Halls Creek in the Kimberly WA and teaching the post graduate diabetes educator course at Southern Cross University on the Gold Coast.

Angie has also worked in private practice on and off since 2004. In private practice Angie has run her own clinics from general practice surgeries and has also been involved in chronic disease management and care planning. She currently works out of 6 clinics and works part time at the Southern Fleurieu Health Service in Victor Harbor SA.

Dr Clement Lo

Dr Clement Lo

ADS Symposium Speaker

Dr Clement Lo is a clinical Endocrinologist and Research Fellow at Monash Health and the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University.  He has research interests in diabetes and chronic kidney disease, obesity and health-care improvement.   Additionally, he is a member of the Medical, Educational and Scientific Advisory Committee for Diabetes Australia.

Ville-Petteri Mäkinen

Ville-Petteri Mäkinen

ADS Symposium Speaker

Ville-Petteri Mäkinen’s current work focuses on the molecular determinants of human phenotypes and their significance to chronic morbidity such as obesity, diabetes heart disease and dementia in later life. He holds an EMBL Australia Group Leader position in the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) in Adelaide, and his research group is part of the Hearth Health Theme in the institute. The interest in systems genetics and epidemiology started early in Dr  Mäkinen’s career.

In his doctoral thesis from Aalto University in Finland, he demonstrated the detrimental effects of the metabolic syndrome phenotype on the long-term adverse outcomes in type 1 diabetes. In the process, he developed a method to statistically estimate the robustness of complex human phenotypes, helped develop a high-throughput NMR metabolomics platform, and applied both to a large nation-wide cohort. Before coming to Australia, Dr Mäkinen studied integrative genomics in Prof Xia Yang’s group in University of California Los Angeles and published new insight into the causal genetic perturbations of gene regulatory networks that predispose to coronary artery disease. He also developed new methodology that was published recently as part of the Mergeomics web site and R package. In 2014, he was appointed to the prestigious EMBL Australia position at SAHMRI, where he is currently leading a cross-disciplinary research group that focuses on the translation of epidemiological results on metabolic and other age-associated diseases into wet lab hypotheses and vice versa.

Carol Maher

Carol Maher

ADEA Symposium Speaker

Carol Maher is a NHMRC Career Development Fellow (2017-2020) and Associate Research Professor in the Alliance for Research in Exercise, Nutrition and Activity (ARENA) at the University of South Australia. Her research focuses on how children’s and adults’ daily activity patterns (e.g. physical activity, sleep and sedentary behaviours) impact their health status. In particular, she’s interested in how technologies such as wearables, online social networking, mobile phone apps, gamification and notifications can support people make better lifestyle choices, in a fun engaging way, and how these interventions can be delivered at scale to positively impact Australian communities. ​

Stuart Mannering

A/Prof Stuart Mannering

ADS Symposium Speaker

The focus of A/Prof Stuart Mannering’s group’s work is to dissect the immune pathology of human autoimmune T-cell response that causes T1D. He and his group were the first to develop CFSE-based proliferation assays for human PBMC and CD4+ T-cell cloning, identify beta-cell epitopes formed by posttranslational modification and isolate T cells from the islets of organ donors who had T1D.

Currently the group’s focus is on identifying antigens ‘seen’ by human islet-infiltrating T cells and developing murine models to investigate their pathogenicity. Eventually this work will contribute to the development of antigen-specific therapies to prevent, or cure, T1D. He is currently supported by a JDRF Career Development Award; and grants from NHMRC, JDRF-Australia T1D CRN, Diabetes Australia and CRC for Cellular Manufacturing. In 2015 he received the JDRF-Macquarie Foundation Diabetes Global Research Innovation Award and the Diabetes Australia Millennium Award and in 2017.

Prof Maria Markoulli

Dr Maria Markoulli

ADS Symposium Speaker

Maria Markoulli is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Optometry and Vision Science at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Her research interests relate to the ocular surface in health and disease. She is a dual Ezell fellow from the American Optometric Foundation (2009 and 2010) and was on the Tear Film and Ocular Surface (TFOS) society sub-committee of the contact lens discomfort workshop and on the pathophysiology sub-committee of the TFOS Dry Eye Workshop II. She is deputy editor for Clinical and Experimental Optometry and the postgraduate coordinator for the School of Optometry and Vision Science at UNSW. She is also the Australian TFOS Ambassador.

Prof David McIntyre

ADS Symposium Speaker

Professor David McIntyre trained in Endocrinology in Australia and Belgium.  He maintains an active clinical profile as Director of Obstetric Medicine at Mater Health Services.  He is Head of the Mater Clinical Unit at the University of Queensland.

David has published over 160 papers (>8000 citations), primarily in the field of medical complications of pregnancy with a focus on diabetes and obesity.  Recent research studies have examined the effects of diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure during pregnancy on the health of Mothers and Babies, both during pregnancy and with long term follow up.  David is the Immediate Past Chair of the International Association of Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Groups (IADPSG).  In 2016, he became the first Australian trained clinician to receive the Norbert Freinkel Award for contributions to diabetes in pregnancy from the American Diabetes Association.

David has been closely involved in the translation of clinical research findings into clinical practice, in particular through the re definition of gestational diabetes and promotion of intensive insulin therapy in Type 1 diabetes through the DAFNE programme.

Anthony Meade

Anthony Meade

ADEA Workshop Speaker

Principal Renal Dietitian, Central Northern Adelaide Renal and Transplantation Service, Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Convenor Renal Nutrition Program.

On a personal mission to prove that Renal Nutrition doesn’t have to be rocket science.

A/Prof Peter J Meikle

A/Prof Peter J Meikle

ADS Symposium Speaker

Professor Peter Meikle is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow. He is leader of the Obesity and Diabetes Program and Head of the Metabolomics Laboratory at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute.  He holds affiliate positions at the University of Melbourne and Monash University. The Metabolomics Laboratory has a focus on the dyslipidemia and altered lipid metabolism associated with obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease and its relationship to the pathogenesis of these disease states.  This work is leading to new approaches to early diagnosis and risk assessment as well as the development of new lipid modulating therapies for chronic disease.

Lisa Nissen

Dr Lisa Nissen

ADEA Plenary & Workshop Speaker

Dr Lisa Nissen is Professor and Head of the School of Clinical Sciences at Queensland University of Technology. She is an experienced pharmacy practitioner, researcher and educator having worked in hospital and community pharmacy in metropolitan and rural areas Australia. Her focus is on improving the Quality Use of Medicines in the wider community, across the health care continuum, with a focus on health service development and factors that influence the prescribing of medicines.

Lisa is a strong believer in the benefits multidisciplinary health care teams can bring to patient care and takes this passion into the classroom with a commitment to the development and implementation of innovative interprofessional education for health students. She has received National Awards for Teaching Excellence in 2008 and 2013 and been been acknowledged for her contributions to the pharmacy profession, being the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia Young Pharmacist of the Year in 2002 and Pharmacist of the Year in 2008.

Kirsty O’Hehir

Kirsty O’Hehir

ADEA Masterclass Speaker

Kirsty O’Hehir is a dietitian who specialises in Early Life Nutrition.  She is a Nutrition Plus licensee and provides both Skype consultations as well as face to face consultations.  One of the most experienced breastfeeding dietitians in Australia, Kirsty has a wealth of knowledge to share to new mothers who are experiencing feeding issues. As well as being an experienced dietitian and mother of two, Kirsty is a member of the Australian Breastfeeding Association.

Prof Odette Pearson

ADS Symposium Speaker

Dr Pearson has a joint appointment as a Senior Research Fellow with Wardliparingga Aboriginal Research Unit, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute and the Sansom Institute for Health Research, University of South Australia. Her experience and post-doctoral training in Aboriginal health policy, health systems and inequity comprises a unique comprehensive skillset relevant to existing and emerging complexities of Aboriginal health and well-being. Specifically, Odette seeks to understand how institutional policies and practices drive health and social inequities experienced by Indigenous populations. Integral to her research is the inclusion of Aboriginal communities in defining their health and wellbeing. Odette led the development of the South Australia Aboriginal Diabetes Strategy.

Joseph Powell

A/Prof Joseph Powell

ADS Symposium Speaker

A/Prof. Joseph Powell is the Head of the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics, a Principal Research Fellow at Garvan Institute for Medical Research, and the Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales. He currently holds a NHMRC Career Development Fellow, with the highest ranked application in his round; awarded an NHMRC Research Excellence Award (2015), and the prestigious 2016 Commonwealth Health Minister’s Medal for Excellence in Medical Research. His research is focused on understanding the functional mechanisms by which genetic variants contribute to disease susceptibility at a cellular level, and ultimately achieve therapeutic and diagnostic outcomes.

Kirstie Pym

ADEA Masterclass Speaker

Kirstie manages a private practice within a District Hospital which means she has worked to keep communications open and build strong relationships to effectively grow the business and manage change. Her team of 30 is vitally important to her and operate like “one big happy family”. Kirstie sees the business as providing great patient care in the community and also about working toward a secure future for their rural workforce.

Elissa Renouf

Elissa Renouf

Consumer Symposium Speaker

Having your child diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes is an emotional time for any parent, but having 4 children diagnosed is a huge emotional rollercoaster.

In a 2-year period, three of Elissa’s sons, Charlie, Billy and Freddie were diagnosed aged 3, 8 and 2 with Type 1. Four years later, her eldest Sam was diagnosed at the age of 16. To add in some variety, Billy and Freddie have coeliac disease, Elissa has Grave’s disease and her daughter Sunita was diagnosed with epilepsy and a brain tumour. Most recently, Charlie was also diagnosed with Addison’s disease…just for something different.

Whilst dealing with the emotional roller coaster of each diagnoses, Elissa still managed to instil positivity into the daily routine of multiple finger pricks and up to 5 insulin injections per day for each of the 4 boys before they went on to a pump.

Through her journey she has gained invaluable knowledge and understanding of how to help others through positivity, support, practical tips and experience to effectively manage their diabetes.

Dr Timothy Roberts

Dr Timothy Roberts

ADS/ADEA Joint Symposium Speaker

Dr Timothy Roberts is a cardiologist based at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne. He graduated from medical school at Monash University in 2005 and completed his cardiology advanced training at Royal Perth Hospital, WA, and St Vincent’s Hospital, VIC, in 2012. Since then, Tim has undertaken fellowships in echocardiography at St Vincent’s Hospital, and adult congenital heart disease at The Royal Brompton Hospital, London, and Erasmus MC, Rotterdam.

Tim has a keen research interest in exercise, cardiovascular health and diabetes, and has been completing a clinical PhD assessing exercise performance and cardiopulmonary limitations in people with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, publishing in leading international journals including Diabetes Care. He has presented his research at national and international meetings and was awarded the ADS President’s Young Investigator Award in 2016 at the ADS-ADEA annual scientific meeting.

Associate Professor Anthony Russell

A/Prof Anthony Russell

ADS Symposium Speaker

Tony is Director of the Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane and an Adjunct Associate Professor with the University of Queensland. Tony was Co-Chair of the Qld Statewide Diabetes Clinical Network from 2013 to 2016 and sat on the Qld Clinical Senate Executive for 2 years. Tony now sits on Council of the Australia Diabetes Society. He has been on the Endocrinology expert group for Therapeutic Guidelines and on the expert advisory group for the NHMRC guidelines on Type 1 diabetes

Tony works closely with GPs and has developed a model of care for management of complex Type 2 diabetes in the community with up-skilled GPs. Tony also personally provides outreach services to rural and remote Qld and has established a Telehealth service delivering Endocrine consultations to over 46 sites across the State of Qld.

Tony’s research interests are around models of care for management of diabetes and has been a Chief Investigator on 2 NHMRC grants. Tony has 100 peer reviewed publications. He was sub-editor for Endocrinology of the Internal Medicine Journal 2015 to 2018.

Professor Jonathan Shaw

Professor Jonathan Shaw

ADS Kellion Award Speaker

Professor Jonathan Shaw is Deputy Director at Melbourne’s Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. He is also an endocrinologist, Chair of the Diabetes Advisory Group to the AIHW, Council member of the Australian Diabetes Society, and Past-President of the International Diabetes Epidemiology Group. His awards include the International Diabetes Epidemiology Group Peter Bennett award (2011), and the ADS Jeff Flack Diabetes Data award (2015). He has authored over 400 peer-reviewed scientific papers, was included in the Thomson Reuters The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds (2014) and Clarivate list of the worlds’ most Highly Cited Researchers (2017).

Carmel Smart

Dr Carmel Smart

ADEA Symposium Speaker

Dr. Carmel Smart is a clinical researcher and practitioner who is internationally recognised as a leading authority in paediatric type 1 diabetes.  Carmel has developed international partnerships and research collaborations aimed at improving the nutritional care of children living with diabetes.

Dr Smart holds appointments as a Senior Diabetes Dietitian and Clinical Research Fellow at the John Hunter Children’s Hospital and is a Conjoint Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle. Carmel led the 2018 International Paediatric Diabetes Clinical Nutrition Guidelines. She is currently appointed to JDRF International Type 1 Exercise Expert Advisory Group and is a senior practitioner member of the Australian Dietetic Council. She has written chapters on diabetes including the latest American Diabetes Association Nutrition Therapy Guidelines. Carmel would like to acknowledge all the families that have taught her so much over the years.

Prof Jane Speight

Prof Jane Speight

ADS Symposium Speaker

Prof Speight is the Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes, a partnership for better health between Diabetes Victoria and Deakin University established in 2010. She completed her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London (UK), and is a chartered psychologist, a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. She has published 130+ peer-¬reviewed journal articles, several book chapters, and given 150+ invited presentations at (inter)national meetings.

Her research focuses broadly on improving the quality of life of people with diabetes and optimising their self-care. This includes developing and using ‘patient-reported outcome’ measures; developing and evaluating structured diabetes education; preventing recurrent severe hypoglycaemia; investigating expectations/experiences and optimisation of diabetes treatments and technologies; and reducing diabetes-related distress. She has led world-first research highlighting diabetes-related stigma, and is a passionate advocate for improving the language used in communications with and about people with diabetes.

Velandai Srikanth

Prof Velandai Srikanth

ADS Symposium Speaker

Prof Srikanth is the Professor of Medicine at Peninsula Health and Monash University, Melbourne. He conducted his doctoral research on the relationship between stroke and dementia. He has since conducted large scale work in studying the impact of vascular disease and its risk factors on the ageing brain, and the role of vascular phenotypes of brain ageing on motor function. He now leads cohort studies in the field of metabolic health and dementia – aimed at understanding the mechanisms linking the two disorders.

Cheryl Steele

Cheryl Steele

ADEA Symposium Speaker

Cheryl undertook her nursing training at Ballarat Base Hospital and then Midwifery Training at Western Health. She completed a Diploma of Health Counselling at Victoria University and her Graduate Certificate of Diabetes Management at Mayfield Education Centre.

She is the manager of Diabetes Education Services at Western Health.  Her primary interests in diabetes education are insulin pumps, Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems and Gestational Diabetes.

Cheryl has co-authored papers in peer reviewed journals on Type 1 diabetes and Gestational Diabetes.

As well as her clinical role Cheryl has a strong focus on Health Professional education for nurses, allied health,  medical practitioners and students.

Cheryl is a member of the clinical advisory committee for Diabetes Victoria, a member of the Medical, Education and Scientific Advisory Board for Diabetes Australia..

Cheryl lives with Type 1 diabetes which she manages with a DYI closed loop pump.

Raymond-Steptoe

A/Prof Raymond Steptoe

ADS Symposium Speaker

Associate Professor Steptoe undertook his undergraduate training in the Anatomy and Human Biology Department at the University of Western Australia.  He completed his PhD in the laboratory of Prof. Pat Holt in Perth studying dendritic cells in the eye.  From there he spent two years at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He then returned to Australia and spent six years in the Autoimmunity and Transplantation Division at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute.

In early 2004 he moved to Brisbane to take up a Research Fellow position at the UQ Diamantina Institute.  A/Prof Steptoe now heads a research group exploring the mechanisms of immune tolerance induction.  Outcomes of this current research is leading to greater understanding of immune system function that will benefit therapy of autoimmune diseases, inflammation and cancer.

Peter Tontonoz

Prof Peter Tontonoz

ADS Plenary Speaker

Peter Tontonoz is the Frances and Albert Piansky Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and David Geffen School of Medicine Dean’s Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles.  Dr. Tontonoz received his B.A. from Wesleyan University and his M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School.  The focus of his laboratory is the control of gene expression by lipids and the role of nuclear receptors in lipid metabolism.  Dr. Tontonoz’s work has helped to reveal fundamental mechanisms by which animals maintain cellular and whole-body lipid homeostasis.

Dr. Tontonoz is a recipient of the Richard Weitzman and Gerald D. Aurbach Awards from the Endocrine Society, and the Jeffrey Hoeg Award from the American Heart Association.  He has been elected to American Society of Clinical investigation and the Association of American Physicians and is a past President of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.  Dr. Tontonoz serves on a number of editorial boards and he is a Reviewing Editor for eLife and the Editor in Chief of Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Matthew Watt

Prof Matthew Watt

ADS Symposium Speaker

Professor Matthew Watt leads an innovative research program that seeks to identify how defects of lipid metabolism and inter-tissue communication cause obesity-related disorders, and to use this information to discover novel targets that can be transitioned to clinical therapeutics.

His team’s research strategy encompasses two major streams:

(1) Target identification- where protein expression is modulated in cultured cells and combined with discovery-based transcriptomic, proteomic and lipidomic approaches with targeted functional cell biology to unravel the regulation of biological functions (metabolism, endocrine function, energy metabolism).

(2) In vivo validation- involves the utilisation of mouse metabolic phenotyping, metabolomics and biochemical assessment of unique transgenic murine models to understand integrative biology systems. This is followed by pre-clinical studies in human tissues to demonstrate potential therapeutic efficacy.

Professor Watt has authored >140 peer-reviewed manuscripts and contributed to the discipline through his roles as National Secretary of the Australian Physiological Society and as a reviewing editor of the American Journal of Physiology (Endocrinology & Metabolism).

Sally Wilson

Sally Wilson

ADEA Masterclass Speaker

Sally Wilson graduated from Flinders University with a Bachelor of Nursing in 2002. She has worked within several different types of nursing including Stroke and Rehabilitation, Neonatal care, Palliative care and Country Health. In 2014 she moved into General Practice with the hope and passion of assisting people in taking responsibility and accountability for their health.

His team’s research strategy encompasses two major streams:

(1) Target identification- where protein expression is modulated in cultured cells and combined with discovery-based transcriptomic, proteomic and lipidomic approaches with targeted functional cell biology to unravel the regulation of biological functions (metabolism, endocrine function, energy metabolism).

(2) In vivo validation- involves the utilisation of mouse metabolic phenotyping, metabolomics and biochemical assessment of unique transgenic murine models to understand integrative biology systems. This is followed by pre-clinical studies in human tissues to demonstrate potential therapeutic efficacy.

Professor Watt has authored >140 peer-reviewed manuscripts and contributed to the discipline through his roles as National Secretary of the Australian Physiological Society and as a reviewing editor of the American Journal of Physiology (Endocrinology & Metabolism).

Rachel Woods

Rachel Woods

ADEA Workshop Speaker

Rachel is a Credentialled Diabetes Educator, currently working in the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network Diabetes Service and in private practice at East Adelaide Health Care, Marden.  She has experience in all aspects of diabetes including adult and paediatric services, pregnancy, insulin pump therapy, continuous glucose monitoring, and insulin calculators.   Rachel is passionate about sharing knowledge and skills and helping others to professionally develop their skills in diabetes management.

Sophia Zoungas

Professor Sophia Zoungas MBBS FRACP PhD

ADS Symposium Speaker

Professor Sophia Zoungas is Chair of Diabetes, Vascular Health and Ageing and Head, Division of Metabolism, Ageing and Genomics, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University. In this capacity she directs and supports large scale projects in diabetes, cardiovascular health, healthy ageing and health care delivery, as well as advises on clinical epidemiological methods and trial design/conduct/reporting.

Professor Zoungas maintains an active clinical role as staff Endocrinologist at Monash Health and is current President of the Australian Diabetes Society.