Career Development Fellowships

2025 recipient

Dr Sean Lal
2025 RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($98,890)

Recipient: Dr Sean Lal

Project: Augmenting Intrinsic Human Cardiac Regeneration to Reverse Heart Failure

Dr Sean Lal is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Science in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney and a Consultant Cardiologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he is Director of Acute Heart Failure Services.

Sean has clinical and research training in heart failure. For his PhD in this field, he was awarded a combined National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and National Heart Foundation (NHF) Scholarship, as well as the NHMRC and Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) prize for research excellence.

Following cardiology training, Sean completed an overseas clinical and basic sciences fellowship in Boston, USA. He was awarded a National Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship by the Australian Government to Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he undertook molecular studies demonstrating the intrinsic regenerative capacity of the human heart after myocardial infarction, whilst also leading Attending Rounds in acute heart failure management in the Cardiac ICU at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Sean’s research laboratory in the School of Medical Sciences at the University of Sydney focuses on basic science and translational research into the molecular pathways of human heart failure, cardiac ageing, and cardiac regeneration.


2024 recipient

2024 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
Recipient: Associate Professor Flora Wong
Project: 'Development of face perception and psychosocial function in preterm infants - The BabyFace Study'

Past recipients

Dr Simon Jiang
2023 | Don & Lorraine Jacquot Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
‘Development of a novel treatment for glomerulonephritis’

Professor Cassandra Szoeke
2022 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
‘The influence of exposures across 30 years from midlife to late life on health outcomes of Australia Women over 70’

Professor Barbora de Courten
2021 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
‘Effect of Carnosine on Walking Endurance in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes and Peripheral Vascular Disease’

Professor Timothy Geraghty
2021 | RACP MAIC Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
‘Complex Rehabilitation In Systems under Immense Stress (CRISIS): Secondary health complications and access to services during system disruption for people with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) — the CRISIS-SCI Study’

Professor Anita Wluka
2020 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
Targeting pain in end stage osteoarthritis (PDF) | Final Report

Dr Ken Pang
2019 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
Improving delivery of RNA therapeutics (PDF) | Final Report

Dr Peter Psaltis
2018 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
A novel role for Adventitial Macrophage Progenitor Cells (AMPCs) in providing a local source of macrophages in atherosclerosis (PDF) | Final Report

Professor David Burgner
2017 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
A mechanistic investigation of the adverse effects of acute childhood infections on cardiovascular risk: The VASCFIND study (PDF) | Final Report

Associate Professor Wai Lim
2017 | Jacquot Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
Extended immunological risk profile: The key to improve kidney transplant outcomes (PDF) | Final Report

Associate Professor Ravinay Bhindi
2016 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
'Optimising the treatment of coronary artery disease through molecular characterisation and state of the art intravascular imaging'

Dr Christopher French (Royal Melbourne Hospital)
2015 | Thyne Reid Foundation Career Development Fellowship ($15,000)
Electrophysiological, Molecular Biological and Computational Investigation of Sodium Channel Modulation by Antiepileptic Drugs (PDF) | Final Report

Dr Andrew Jabbour (Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute)
2015 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
'Novel strategies for the detection and attenuation of Ischaemia-Reperfusion Injury in Heart Transplantation'

Associate Professor Marie Bismark (University of Melbourne)
2014 | RACP Fellows Career Development Fellowship ($100,000)
Mandatory notification: serving the interests of Australian patients and doctors? (PDF) | Final Report

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