HRI’s Dr Lining (Arnold) Ju has been awarded a category 1 Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship to establish his cardiovascular mechanobiology research program ‘Novel mechano-medicine combats deadly platelet clotting in diabetes’. Dr Ju also received the Heart Foundation Paul Korner Innovation Award, which is given to the most innovative successful Future Leader Fellowship and Postdoctoral Fellowship applications each year.
“The second coming of cardiovascular diseases caused by diabetes and obesity is real, not far from us and affecting the younger generation,” Dr Ju says.
“I have strong personal and familial reasons that motivate me in this career path. I could not prevent the loss in my family, but I am dedicated to this research so that we can protect the younger generation in our community from the devastating effects of cardiovascular disease.”
Diabetes has become one of the major healthcare challenges of the 21st century and a leading cause worldwide of clotting diseases in which blood flow is obstructed, which can lead to heart attack and stroke.
Unfortunately, the existing anticlotting drugs discovered and developed over the last 40 years are suboptimal, with less than 1 in 6 patients with diabetes taking these therapies avoiding a fatal thrombotic event.
Dr Ju’s proposed research is focused on addressing this pressing need for the identification and development of more effective approaches. It will elucidate a novel biomechanical mechanism that associates with mechanical force generated by dynamic blood flow and leads to enhanced blood clotting in diabetes. The outcome may likely explain the reduced efficacy of current anticlotting drugs in individuals with diabetes, which does not take the ‘force effect’ into account. Moreover, it will provide an innovative therapeutic strategy to reduce blood clots in people with diabetes.
Dr Ju’s research program involves a university collaboration with the Charles Perkins Centre and School of Biomedical Engineering at The University of Sydney, the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and an international collaboration with the world-leading biomedical engineering department at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University in the USA.
