HYPERTENSION AND THE GUT MICROBIOME: USING GUT MICROBES TO REDUCE BLOOD PRESSURE
Professor Francine Marques
Professor of Genetics and Genomics
Monash University, Victoria, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE (Filmed in Clayton, Victoria | December 2024)
Professor Francine Marques is an National Health and Medical Research Council Emerging Leader, Viertel Charitable Foundation, and National Heart Foundation Fellow.
She leads the Hypertension Research Laboratory at Monash University and has published more than 120 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as Nature Reviews Cardiology, Nature Medicine, Nature Cardiovascular Research, and Circulation.
As a researcher Professor Marques has secured over $10 million in competitive funding as a principal investigator. She has won 31 awards, including the 2019 American Heart Association Hypertension Council Goldblatt Award, the 2020 High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia and 2021 International Society of Hypertension Mid-Career Awards, the 2021 Australian Academy of Science Gottschalk Medal, and the 2024 Australian Society of Medical Research Peter Doherty Leading Light Award, and was a finalist for 12 awards, including the Eureka Prize Emerging Leader in Science.
Her research team aims to build exceptional scientists that help improve cardiovascular health, using translational approaches to lower blood pressure via the gut microbiome. Professor Marques is also passionate about equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and helping communities change the current culture of research.
She has led research identifying intrinsic equity issues in the cardiovascular research community in Australia (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32839116/), followed by research to find solutions for these issues (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35577952/), resulting in the 2021 Women’s Agenda Emerging Leader in STEM award.
Outside work, Francine enjoys baking, travelling, spending time with family, friends and her dogs, and reading books.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4920-9991
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Infections and other lung diseases using models of human lung tissue grown from stem cells
Dr Rhiannon Werder is a Team Leader at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute leading a multidisciplinary team, combining expertise in stem cell biology and immunology, to develop new therapies for lung diseases. Her research centres around induced pluripotent stem cells to investigate respiratory diseases, spanning acute respiratory infections to chronic lung diseases. Using stem cells, Dr Werder’s team creates models of human lung tissue. With these models, Dr Werder is investigating how human-specific pathogens infect different regions of the lung, the ensuing immune responses, and how the lung repairs itself after infections, especially in people with preexisting lung diseases.
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Relationship between language-literacy skills and mental health
In an innovative move towards enhancing mental health services, Associate Professor Amanda Neil and team, supported by the RHH Research Foundation, are undertaking a crucial study on language-literacy skills of patients within mental health care settings. This year-long project, which commenced in April 2024, seeks to unravel to what extent, where and for whom language-literacy skills are being considered in Tasmanian mental health service provision.
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Liver cancer & patient-derived tumour organoids
Dr Benjamin Dwyer is a translational cancer researcher driven by a clear purpose: to ensure discoveries made in the laboratory genuinely improve outcomes for patients.
Based at Curtin University, he established and now leads the organoid platform within the Liver Cancer Collaborative and directs the WA Organoid Innovation Hub, working at the intersection of biology, medicine and biotechnology to accelerate new treatments for liver cancer.
