Award winner visits Centenary

A/Prof James Hudson from the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute and recipient of the Centenary Institute Medical Innovation Award (formerly Lawrence Creative Prize) in 2017, has presented a seminar at the Centenary Institute on the progression of his exciting cardiac organoids activity.

Delivering his talk on the topic, ‘Human cardiac organoids for the discovery of new therapeutics’, A/Prof Hudson discussed his work on state-of-the art bioengineering approaches for human 3D organoid development (an organoid is a miniaturized and very simplified version of an organ and is derived from stem cells).

Creating organoids that have the characteristics of heart muscle, A/Prof Hudson is better able to study heart disease as well as to test potential new medications. He is also exploring organoid potential for treating or repairing damaged tissue in the heart.

During the seminar, A/Prof Hudson explained that he had identified several therapeutic candidates for cardiac regeneration from his research and that he was currently doing further pre-clinical work in an attempt to translate these findings into humans.

Noting his prior association with the Centenary Institute as a winner of the Institute’s distinguished medical research award, Dr Hudson was happy to explain what winning the award had meant to him.

“Winning the award provided additional recognition of my research program, was very helpful for me when I was recruited to QIMR Berghofer and has also given weight to my grant applications,” he said.

“It’s an absolute pleasure to be presenting here at the Centenary Institute and to be able to share the progression of my research.”