Keynote Speakers

Dr Grant Waterer

David Curnow Plenary Lecture

Dr Waterer is Professor of Medicine at the University of Western Australia, Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University, Chicago and Curtin University, Perth and Adjunct Professor at Edith Cowan University . He is the Area Director of Medical Services for East Metropolitan Health Service, the Director of Medical Services for Royal Perth Bentley Hospital Group and has been in a senior executive role at RPGB for the past 9 years. He is a Board Member for the Lions Eye Institute and a consultant advisor for a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies based in both the USA or Europe. His main research interests are in pulmonary infections, especially pneumonia and non-tuberculous mycobacterial disease, as well as bronchiectasis, COPD and of course COVID-19. He has over 200 peer reviewed publications and more than 70 invited international presentations. He is the section editor for infections for the European Respiratory Journal and on the editorial board of 8 other journals including the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He is the ATS chair of the recently published Community-acquired pneumonia guidelines and a member of the 2017 HAP/VAP guideline panel.

Prof Clara Chow

Professor Clara Chow is Academic Director of the Westmead Applied Research Centre (WARC), Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney. She is a cardiologist and the Program Director of Community Based Cardiac Services at Westmead hospital and is also a member of the Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD) Governing Board, Sydney, Australia. Professor Chow has also been appointed the Director of the Australian Stroke and Heart Accelerator (ASHRA). She currently holds honorary appointments as the Charles Perkins Centre Westmead Academic Co-director and President of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand. Professor Chow’s research focuses on the prevention of cardiovascular disease, innovation in the delivery of cardiovascular care and the evaluation of digital health interventions. She has expertise in the design, delivery and implementation of clinical trials. Her PhD from the University of Sydney, Australia was in cardiovascular epidemiology and international public Health and her Postdoc from McMaster University, Canada in clinical trials and cardiac imaging. She is supported by a NHMRC Investigator grant.

A/Prof Brian Jackson

QAP Plenary

Brian R. Jackson, MD, MS is an associate professor of pathology at the University of Utah, and the medical director of IT, Support Services and Business Development at ARUP Laboratories. He received his BA (mathematics), MS (medical informatics) and MD degrees at the University of Utah. He completed residency in clinical pathology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Dr. Jackson's research interests include the application of medical ethics to biomedical industry and technology, including artificial intelligence. He is certified in clinical pathology by the American Board of Pathology.

Dr Peter Kavsak

Dr. Kavsak is a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is also a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Clinical Biochemistry, the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Academy, and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society. He is a biochemist and scientist within the Hamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine Program, primarily based at the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre within Hamilton Health Sciences with special clinical and academic focus and interests in the cardiac and cancer related laboratory tests. He has over 250 publications, been on the editorial board for a dozen journals, a reviewer for more than 50 different clinical and laboratory journals and a member of research ethics boards for over 20 years.

Prof Jeremy Nicholson

An internationally-renowned pioneer in metabolic phenotyping and systems medicine, Professor Nicholson is the Director of the Australian National Phenome Centre, Pro Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences at Murdoch University and a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher who has authored more than 700 peer-reviewed papers on molecular aspects of body systems medicine.

A Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Science, Professor Nicholson comes to WA from Imperial College London where he was the founding director of the MRC-NIHR National Phenome Centre. View full bio here

Clinical Prof John Walsh

John Walsh is a Consultant Endocrinologist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia and Clinical Professor in the Medical School at the University of Western Australia. Originally from Scotland, his undergraduate studies were at University College, Oxford and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. He trained in internal medicine in Christchurch, New Zealand, and in endocrinology in Perth and Melbourne. His doctoral research (in reproductive neuroendocrinology) was at Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research (now the Hudson Institute), Melbourne. Since 1999, he has led a research group in thyroid disease, encompassing clinical and genetic epidemiology, laboratory diagnosis, clinical management and patterns of care. He is the principal investigator of the Busselton Thyroid Study, and a member of international consortia examining the health impact of subclinical thyroid disease, variations in thyroid function within the normal range, maternal thyroid dysfunction during pregnancy and the genetic and epigenetic architecture of thyroid function and disease. He also has a research interest in calcium pathophysiology and skeletal medicine and has published over 160 scientific papers.