Keynote Speakers 

Professor Frans Leenen
Hypertension Unit
University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Canada
RD Wright Lecturer 

Frans H.H. Leenen received his PhD and MD from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. He completed his residencies in internal medicine and cardiology at the University of Utrecht Medical School and teaching hospitals. He obtained postdoctoral research training at the University of Utrecht and the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Leenen is currently Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Ottawa School of Medicine, and Director of the Hypertension Unit at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.

Dr. Leenen’s current areas of research are 1) brain mechanisms determining sympathetic hyperactivity in salt-sensitive hypertension and congestive heart failure; and 2) genetic basis of salt-sensitive hypertension. He is a fellow in the cardiovascular section of the American Physiological Society, a fellow of the Council for High Blood Pressure of the American Heart Association, and a fellow of the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences.

For many years he was a Career Investigator of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, and since 2004 the first recipient of the Pfizer Research Chair in Hypertension, an endowed chair supported by Pfizer Canada, the Ottawa Heart Institute Foundation, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He is also the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Dedicated Service Award from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. He has published more than 270 peer-reviewed papers in respected journals, such as the American Journal of Physiology, Hypertension, Circulation, and Circulation Research. He is/was a member of editorial boards for American Journal of Hypertension, Blood Pressure, Canadian Journal of Cardiology, Hypertension, Journal of Hypertension, American Journal of Cardiovascular Drugs, and Therapeutic Advances in Cardiovascular Disease.

Professor Michael Cowley
Department of Physiology 
Monash University, Australia
Austin Doyle Lecturer

 Prof. Cowley is a physiologist and bioentrepreneur with a strong focus on obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disorders. Research within the Cowley lab has mapped the pathways that are engaged by signals of energy state, and how these pathways relay information to the rest of the brain. He was able to discover new signals within the body that regulate energybalance and describe how other known energy signals exert their effects on the brain. The lab uses a variety of methods in several model species, including in vivo physiology studies in animals using remote telemetry and electrophysiological studies in brain slices and cultured cells. The lab also runs complex in vivo studies on energy balance in monkeys. Research in the lab has evolved into several clinical trials, ranging from Phase2a through to large scale Phase 3 trials. He has published more than 60 papers and chapters, many in the highest profile journals. He is the inventor of multiple patents, and the founder of Orexigen Therapeutics, a publically listed (NASDAQ: OREX) San Diego biotech company that is translating his discoveries into human therapeutics. Professor Cowley’s tertiary education was at Melbourne University where he completed his Bachelor of Science in 1989. Between 1994 and 1998 he was a graduate student of Reproductive Neuroendocrinology, Department of Physiology, Monash University and Prince Henry’s Institute for Medical Research in Melbourne. From 1998 to 2008 he worked in the USA; developing an extensive program in obesity and diabetes drug discovery and development. In 2008 he received a VESKI (Victorian Endowment for Science, Knowledge, and Innovation) Innovation Fellowship, and in 2009 the Pfizer Australia Senior Research Fellowship.

Dr Alex Brown
Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Australia
Colin I Johnston Lecturer

Dr Alex Brown is an indigenous doctor, who has been working in Aboriginal health, Aboriginal health education, policy, communicable disease control, service delivery and public health, epidemiology, research and research ethics for the last 9 years. Dr Brown is currently the head of the Centre for Indigenous Vascular and Diabetes Research, for the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, based in Alice Springs. Dr Brown’s research interests include indigenous cardiovascular disease disparity and its determinants, clinical and epidemiological cardiovascular research, chronic disease policy development, health services research, indigenous male health, and unpacking the psychosocial determinants of Indigenous health.