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High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia |
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HBPRCA Email Newsletter
March 2008
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There are a number of new
initiatives including our new look web site, a French Australian exchange
initiative, our HBPRCA 30th
Birthday Celebrations, an Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring
Initiative and a Human and Animal Devices workshop to accompany the end of
year meeting. For those that wish to relive
the revelries of the Adelaide meeting, Athina from Meetings First has made a photo album
available – click here. Don’t forget that
ISH is in Berlin this year, with registration and accommodation booking now
open. Visit the website! Associate Professor
Geoffrey A Head |
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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE from Stephen Harrap It is an Honour to be able to continue to write
under the President’s by-line and it is a delight to have a new Executive of
the Council to carry on the great work of the previous. The new committee
comprises:
I’d like to thank all those who put themselves
forward for the Executive and welcome and congratulate Ann Goodchild, Arduino
Mangoni, Bruce Neal and Markus Schlaich, who have already shown their
enthusiasm and potential to contribute.
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MEETING NEWS from Kate Denton
The Austin Doyle lecturer is an expatriate,
Associate Professor David Sinclair, Harvard Medical School. David did his PhD with Prof Dawes in
Sydney. His research focuses on ways to prevent and treat the major diseases
of society by manipulating genes that control how fast we age. All reports
suggest that David is an engaging speaker. Certainly, his work has been
recognized by many prestigious awards and invitations. We are fortunate that
he has been able to accept our invitation this year. I am also particularly please to
announce that our own Assoc Prof Bruce Neal has accepted the Colin Johnston
lectureship. An award that he is well
suited for, having risen in a very short time to be to be head of a very
large cardiovascular research group at The George Institute in Sydney, where
he is now a Senior Director of Vascular Research. Bruce Neal is a
cardiovascular epidemiologist with particular expertise in the conduct of
large-scale studies in the field of blood pressure and cardiovascular
diseases, focusing on providing new evidence to influence clinical practice.
Some of his major contributions to date include being study director and
member of the Management Committee for the PROGRESS and ADVANCE trials, being
one of the Founders of and the Director responsible for the Blood Pressure
Lowering Treatment Tribalists’ Collaboration, and accepting a major role as
Chairman of the Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health
(AWASH) which he has energised to a remarkable degree. Bruce has been at the
forefront of moving away from basing treatment decisions purely on the level
of blood pressure per se to basing them on total cardiovascular risk. This has extended the indications for
treatment to include blood pressure lowering in individuals with high
cardiovascular risk, but with blood pressure in the “normal range. I’m sure that he will deliver a talk of
interest to all our members. I
also have plans to try (yet again!) to energise the poster sessions. I would like to engage the help of our
more junior post-doc members in awarding some smaller prizes to poster
presentations. This will not replace the
student poster prize. However, this
will give valuable experience to our younger colleagues, be an addition to
their CV’s and will hopefully involve greater participation in the poster
discussions. Human and Animal
Devices Workshop This years workshop which will be held on Wednesday
3rd of December prior to the main meeting and will be focussed on
devices used in both clinical and basic (animal) research. Data Sciences International are keen to continue
to sponsor the animal telemetry users component of the workshop which proved
to be very successful in Brisbane. We have also had considerable interest in
expanding this to include human devices. The workshop will therefore be
organised as a morning and afternoon sessions focussing on each area, which
will allow participants to attend either or both sessions depending on their
interests. If any members would like to contribute please
contact the organising committee Geoff Head, Kate Denton, Markus Schlaich and
Arduino Mangoni via hbprca@meetingsfirst.com.au. |
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HBPRCA 30TH BIRTHDAY
CELEBRATIONS Student
introductions Getting to know and encouraging the
next generation of leaders in BP research is a major goal of the Council.
Therefore, we thought that it would be a good idea to “introduce” our
students at this year’s annual dinner. We would like to do this in the form
of a power point presentation that will loop for most of the night. We are
requesting that students provide the secretariat with their photo and some
salient points about themselves (no more than 50 words). This will help put
names and interests to student faces and facilitate convivial conversations. Our Family Tree
Competitions We would like to open the
following four competitions – 2 written and 2 photographic:
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PRIZES at the ASM We have updated the
“prize” definitions, to make them simpler for all. Please see below. This information is also on the website. Early Career
Investigator Oral and Poster Awards Supported by the High
Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia (oral) Supported by Clinical
Science (poster) This award is to encourage
membership and foster active participation of early career investigators in
the HBPRCA. The candidate must be an early career scientist (up to 10 years
post-doctorate, with consideration given for career interruption). Student Oral and
Poster Presentation Awards Supported by the High
Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia
Prizes and
Eligibility All
finalists are selected based on the ranking of their abstracts submitted
by the normal process for presentation at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the
Council. The winner of each prize will be decided by an specially convened
judging panel based on the quality of the data and the presentation.
be a member of the
HBPRCA by September 30 in the year of application to qualify. be the first author
of the abstract NOT have published
the work presented in the abstract in other than electronic form, at the time
of submission. NOT to have won an
award in same category in the previous year*. Best Oral
Prizes of $1,000 – will be awarded to the best
presentation in the Early Career Investigator Oral Award Finalists Session
and also to the best Student Oral Presentation. Best Poster
Prizes of $500 will be awarded to the best Early
Career Investigator presentation and also to the best student presentation.
In each case the presentation will involve the poster and a mini oral
presentation. The Early career Investigator award is sponsored by Clinical
Science and includes a certificate and a year's free online access to
Clinical Science. British
Hypertension Society Award Supported by the High
Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia and the British Hypertension
Society (BHS)
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MEMBERSHIP NEWS from Doug McKitrick March 31st is the
annual subscription due date for the HBPRCA. If you have thus far overlooked
paying it’s still not too late! Simply go to Don’t forget to
encourage your graduate students and post docs to take out membership with
the Council (free for students!). The special initiatives that have been
introduced are specifically intended to benefit student and early career members.
And of course participating in the vibrant Annual Scientific Meeting
(particularly the 2008 30th anniversary meeting) is a tremendous opportunity
for you, your post-docs, students and research associates to see and discuss
the broad research interests of the council and share your own. |
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FRANCO
AUSTRALIAN EXCHANGE PROGRAM from Geoff Head and Bruce Neal
·
Application
forms are available from Meetings First, hbprca@meetingsfirst.com.au ·
The
deadline for applications will be the 25th of April (Anzac day). The
applications will be judged by a panel of the HBPRCA executive and
notification expected to be made within 2 weeks of the application. ·
The
degree of support is anticipated to be AUD$2500 toward the airfare and
800-1000 euros per month towards the cost of accommodation. ·
The winner will be required to write a feature article (in English)
with photos for the e-news!! |
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AMBULATORY BLOOD
PRESSURE MONITORING (ABPM) WORKING GROUP INITIATIVE 2008 At present ABPM can be used to diagnose
hypertension, but cannot be used to manage hypertension because there
are no ABPM equivalents for target BP. While the PAMELA (1) study
provided an ABPM equivalent for the diagnostic level of 140/90, this study
from Monza in Italy does not readily provide ABPM equivalents for target BP’s
such as 125/75, nor is it necessarily relevant to the Australian
population. It is therefore important to derive a robust algorithm,
which can provide relevant ABPM target blood pressures. This HBPRCA clinical research
collaborative initiative is to establish ABPM target blood pressures relevant
to the Australian population. A number of Council members have expressed
interest in participating in the Working Group and we would like to hear from
more members who have experience in ambulatory recording and would like to
contribute their data so that we can collect clinic blood pressure and
ambulatory recordings throughout Australia in order to provide sufficient
data to derive the Clinic- ABPM relationship which will also be able to
account for ethnicity, sex or age. We are currently preparing the project
outline and scope for agreement and welcome suggestions. To indicate the feasibility of
this process, we have performed an initial pilot analysis of data collected
at the Alfred-Baker Heart centre. Figure below left shows the correlation
between 24 hour and Clinic Systolic Blood Pressure, which has regression
coefficients very close to the PAMELA study. The table (below right)
indicates the equivalent ABPM values for the clinic values of 140/90 based on
the regressions. Interestingly, the PAMELA study and our pilot data show for
at least 24 hour measurements, almost identical results.
We are working to have this
completed by the end of the year so we would expect data collection to be complete
by June this year. In order to promote further participation, some details of
the data to be collected is set out below. The data will need to be
de-identified and its inclusion in the analysis will need the respective
Institution Ethics Committee approval for transfer. The data will include the
following:
We now need to
know those council members that would like to participate in this project.
Now is the time to get on board! Please contact geoff.head@baker.edu.au by COB Friday 4 April 2008. Mancia
G, Sega R, Bravi C, De Vito G, Valagussa F, Cesana G, Zanchetti A. Ambulatory
blood pressure normality: results from the PAMELA study. J Hypertens.
1995;13:1377-1390. |
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CALL FOR SPECIAL ARTICLES for
Hypertension Professor
John hall has written to members of the Council who are editors of
Hypertension and asked for suggestions for invitations to write articles on
specific topics and for potential authors who should be invited to write
Brief Reviews, Hypertension Highlights, and other features that would be of
exceptional interest to the readers of Hypertension. These features are described on the web site for Hypertension
at: http://hyper.ahajournals.org/ If you are interested in contributing, please
contact Stephen Harrap s.harrap@unimelb.edu.au or
other Hypertension board members who are members of the Council. |
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DR RALPH READER from Paul Korner Dr Ralph Reader (Fig 1 nearby, see legend), who was the first Director of the National Heart Foundation of Australia, died in Canberra on | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
