Dr James chong

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Fulbright NSW Scholar

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“Heart failure is increasing exponentially: some 300,000 Australians currently have heart failure, 400 new cases are diagnosed each week and 20,000 people will die from it each year. Transplant donor rates are declining and there are many serious side effects associated with the immunosuppressive medications required. New therapies are urgently needed.”

Dr James Chong, a PhD candidate at Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, is the inaugural winner of the Fulbright New South Wales Scholarship, supported by the NSW Government and NSW universities.

Through his Fulbright, James will spend twelve months at the University of Washington, Seattle. He will investigate possible new therapies for heart failure using stem cells. He will do this by creating heart muscle grafts from stem cells and look for ways to increase growth of blood vessels within the grafts to improve chances of success.

“Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in Australia and other developed
countries,” James says.

“While substantial progress has been made over the last decades in the clinical management of patients with coronary artery disease, heart failure is on the rise.”

James said that presently the only hope for patients with end stage heart failure is a heart transplant.

“With donor rates continuing to fall this is not possible for many patients. For those lucky enough to receive a donor heart, technically difficult surgery and protracted recovery ensues. Even if this is successful, patients face a life-time of delicately balancing prevention of graft rejection with the dangerous side effects of immunosuppressive medications.”

“Ground breaking new stem cell treatments may lead to treatments that keep patients out of hospital and avoid the last resort of organ transplantation.”

James will take advantage of state-of-the-art stem cell research techniques in the U.S. not performed in Australia and bring back knowledge of the materials and methods needed to increase Australian research in this area.

James has Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery Medicine from the University of Sydney.