Professor Murray David Esler, AM FAA (born in 1943 in Geelong, Australia) is a clinical cardiologist and medical scientist, based at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, where he is the Associate Director of the Heart Centre. He is a Professor of Medicine at Melbourne's Monash University. As Associate Director of the Baker, Professor Esler leads the Institute’s research into the relationship between the brain and heart health. He studied medicine at the University of Melbourne and received a PhD from the Australian National University (Department of Clinical Science). [1] His chief research interests are the causes and treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure, the effects of stress on the cardiovascular system, and monoamine transmitters of the human brain.
His research on the sympathetic nerves of the kidneys in essential hypertension provided the theoretical basis for the development of a revolutionary treatment of high blood pressure, involving silencing these nerves with a radio wave emitting catheter placed in the kidney arteries. This treatment, called Renal Sympathetic Denervation, is now used clinically in Europe and Australia for severe drug-resistant hypertension, and is in Stage 3 trials in the United States.
He is the father of actor Ben Esler.
Professor Esler has received the following awards for his research:
The Kolling Institute is located in the grounds of the Royal North Shore Hospital in St Leonards, Sydney Australia. The institute, founded in 1920, is the oldest medical research institute in New South Wales.
Robert William Schrier was founding editor-in-chief of the magazine Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology. Schrier was formerly Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine for 26 years, and Head of the Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension for 20 years. At the time of his death, he was Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He died in Potomac, Maryland.
The Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, commonly known as the Baker Institute, is an Australian independent medical research institute headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. Established in 1926, the institute is one of Australia's oldest medical research organisations with a historical focus on cardiovascular disease. In 2008, it became the country's first medical research institute to target diabetes, heart disease, obesity and their complications at the basic, clinical and population health levels.
Christopher Carl Goodnow is an immunology researcher and the current executive director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. He holds the Bill and Patricia Ritchie Foundation Chair and is a Conjoint Professor in the faculty of medicine at UNSW Sydney. He holds dual Australian and US citizenship.
Michael Cowley FTSE is an Australian physiologist. He is best known for his mapping of the neural circuits involved in metabolism and obesity and diabetes treatment. He is a professor in the Department of Physiology at Monash University in the Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences. He is also a director of the Australian diabetes drug development company, Verva Inc, and director of the Monash Obesity & Diabetes Institute] (modi).
Brian J. Druker, M.D. is a physician-scientist at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), in Portland, Oregon. He is the chief executive officer of OHSU's Knight Cancer Institute, JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research, Associate Dean for Oncology in the OHSU School of Medicine, and professor of medicine.
Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS, FMedSci, FRCP, FRCS was an Australian surgeon and Nuffield professor of surgery at the University of Oxford. Morris was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, founder of the Oxford Transplant Centre and director of the Centre for Evidence in Transplantation at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Stephen William MacMahon AO DSc FAA FMediSci FAHMS FACC is a British-Australian academic medical researcher, healthcare entrepreneur and founder of The George Institute for Global Health. He holds professorial academic appointments in medicine at UNSW Sydney and Imperial College London.
Carl Ronald Kahn is an American physician and scientist, best known for his work with insulin receptors and insulin resistance in diabetes and obesity. He is the Chief Academic Officer at Joslin Diabetes Center, the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1999.
Elspeth McLachlan, an Australian neuroscientist, is a world authority on neural pathways within the autonomic nervous system. Her work has included detailed analyses of transmission in autonomic ganglia to studies of the organisation of autonomic nervous pathways and their disorder in pathological states, particularly injuries to peripheral nerves and the spinal cord.
Josephine Forbes is an Australian scientist specialising in the study of glycation and diabetes. She has been studying diabetes since 1999 and has worked at Royal Children's Hospital, University of Melbourne and Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne Australia. Since 2012 she has led the Glycation and Diabetes team at Mater Research which is a world-class medical research institute based at South Brisbane, and part of the Mater Group. Josephine is program leader for Mater's Chronic Disease Biology and Care theme, building greater understanding of the biological basis of a broad range of chronic diseases, and developing preventative strategies and innovative treatments to improve patient outcomes. Josephine and her team focus on how advanced glycation contributes to the pathogenesis of diabetes and its complications such as kidney disease.
Toshiro Fujita. M.D., PhD (1948-) is a Japanese physician-scientist. He is a professor emeritus of The University of Tokyo and received the Medal of Honor (Japan). He served as chair and director for Japan Societies of Internal Medicine, Nephrology, Endocrinology and Hypertension.
Kathryn Nance North is a paediatric physician, neurologist, and clinical geneticist. In 2013, she was appointed Director of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and was named the David Danks Professor of Child Health Research at the University of Melbourne. In 2012, North was appointed chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council Research Committee. In 2014, she was appointed vice chair of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) and co-chair of its Clinical Working Group.
Carl H. June is an American immunologist and oncologist. He is currently the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He is most well known for his research on T cell therapies for the treatment of several forms of cancers. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Rhian M. Touyz Koppel MBBCh, MSc (Med), PhD, FRCP, FRSE, FMedSci, FCAHS is a Canadian medical researcher. She is currently serving as the Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada, since 2021. A clinician scientist, her research primarily focuses on hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
Vlado Perkovic is an Australian renal physician and researcher who is the Provost at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, having previously been Dean of Medicine & Health at that University between 2019 and 2023.
Professor David Wayne Johnson is an Australian nephrologist known for kidney treatments and transplants in Australia. In 2009 he was a Queensland State Finalist for Australian of the Year, for his work in the early recognition and care of people with chronic kidney disease and specifically for his work in detection of chronic kidney disease.
Judith Ann Whitworth is an Australian medical researcher in the areas of kidney function and blood pressure. Now an emeritus professor, she is the former director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research and Howard Florey Professor of Medical Research at the Australian National University (ANU).
John Philip Chalmers is an Australian medical researcher, best known for his work in the field of cardiovascular physiology, specifically for his research into hypertension.