ENGINEERED PROTEINS TO REPAIR OR REGROW DAMAGED HEART MUSCLE CELLS AND TISSUE
Associate Professor Dan Hesselson,
Head of the Centre for Biomedical AI,
Centenary Institute
Sydney, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Sydney, Australia | July 2026
Associate Professor Dan Hesselson leads the Centre for Biomedical AI at the Centenary Institute.
He is an internationally trained research leader in regenerative medicine, focusing on cells and organs affected by heart disease, diabetes and cancer. His work uses insights from the study of basic regenerative processes to identify novel therapeutic targets for these devastating diseases.
His work with zebrafish, which started at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and was expanded at the Garvan Institute, made significant contributions to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of regeneration in this highly regenerative model system.
At the Centenary Institute, he is focused on exploiting these breakthroughs in basic science to develop new therapeutic strategies using the power of Directed Evolution to generate potent and highly specific biologic drugs.
His research is investigating new ways to repair the heart and improve outcomes for individuals recovering from heart attacks or living with heart disease, aiming to address a critical gap in cardiac care.
While current treatments can manage symptoms, they cannot restore heart function once muscle cells are lost. This irreversible damage is why heart failure remains a leading cause of death worldwide.
Associate Professor Hesselson’s research aims to address this challenge by developing therapies based on engineered proteins capable of repairing or regrowing damaged heart muscle cells and tissue.
Source: Supplied and adapted from Centenary Institute media release (June 2026)
-
Prescribing exercise to regional population with cardiovascular disease & diabetes
Associate Professor Gordon’s research is aimed at determining the optimal methods of prescribing and implementing exercise as part of the health care plan for people with cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Specifically, he is leading work to determine if and how the components of exercise can be considered as a whole for prescribing exercise to generate health benefits. This is important to overcome the series of barriers that people living in rural and regional areas experience when trying to become active.
-
Next-generation NK cell-based immunotherapies for hard-to-treat cancers
Associate Professor Fernando Guimaraes is an internationally recognised leader in cancer immunotherapy and natural killer (NK) cell biology. Based at The University of Queensland, he leads innovative research focused on developing next-generation NK cell-based immunotherapies for hard-to-treat cancers, including sarcomas and neuroblastoma.
-
Clinical Research in Emergency Medicine
Professor Daniel Fatovich is a senior emergency physician and clinical researcher at Royal Perth Hospital Emergency Department (ED), with over 30 years’ experience in the design and conduct of clinical research in Emergency Medicine. He is also Head of the Centre for Clinical Research in Emergency Medicine (CCREM) within the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research.
