Travel Grants
2023 recipients
Dr Benson Chen
Bushell Travelling Fellowship in Medicine or the Allied Sciences ($10,000)
'eyeHD: Assessing Huntington’s Disease patients for ophthalmological abnormalities as a measure of disease stage'
Dr Benson Chen is a clinical research fellow in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Auckland in 2012 and undertook advanced training in neurology at Auckland City Hospital. Following completion of neurology training in 2019, Benson commenced a clinical and research fellowship in neuro-ophthalmology at Emory Eye Center and the Emory University of School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Benson is currently based at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, UK. His research focuses on identifying ophthalmic biomarkers of neurological disease and evaluating outcome measures for patients affected by neuro-ophthalmic diseases.
Dr Jessica Lee
Margorie Hooper Scholarship ($10,000)
'Development of new approaches to measure proteolysis and glycosylation profiling of corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG) in septic shock using mass spectrometry'
Dr Jessica Lee (MBChB FRACP) is an endocrinologist and PhD candidate. She has graduated from the University of Auckland in 2012 and completed advanced training in Endocrinology and General Medicine at Auckland City Hospital, North Shore Hospital and Middlemore Hospital, with admission as a fellow of the RACP in 2020. She is currently undertaking a PhD with Professor David Torpy at the University of Adelaide. Her research interests include adrenal insufficiency and corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG). Her current PhD project focuses on different affinity forms and glycoforms of CBG in the setting of sepsis.
Dr James Nadel
Bushell Travelling Fellowship in Medicine or the Allied Sciences ($20,000)
'Detection of High-Risk Atherosclerotic Plaque with a novel Tropoelastin-Specific PET Contrast Agent'
Dr James Nadel is a cardiologist and CT coronary angiography specialist with a particular interest in atherosclerosis. He aims to develop innovative, non-invasive cardiovascular imaging techniques to improve plaque characterisation and risk stratification for patients. James is finishing a PhD at the Heart Research Institute (HRI), working on a myeloperoxidase-based probe for the detection of high-risk atherosclerotic plaque. He is a CI in an MRFF funded project seeking to perform clinical phase I and II trials that have stemmed from his PhD findings.
In 2023, James will travel to the United Kingdom to perform postdoctoral research at King’s College London and St.Thomas & Guy’s Hospital. This postdoctoral research project will focus on a novel PET contrast agent known as TESMA which is highly selective for tropoelastin; an important component of the extracellular matrix that is implicated in plaque progression and instability. TESMA was designed by the Biomedical Engineering & Image Sciences department at the King’s College London. James will work with patients undergoing imaging for suspected coronary artery disease to investigate whether TESMA allows for selective detection of culprit lesions in myocardial infarction.
Dr Siddharth Trivedi
Robert and Elizabeth Albert Travel Grant ($10,000)
'Multimodality imaging for the detection of early cardiac amyloidosis'
Dr Siddharth Trivedi is an Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging Fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. His fellowship involves clinical and research training in multimodality cardiovascular imaging, including advanced echocardiography, CT coronary angiography, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, vascular imaging and nuclear cardiology. He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate medical studies in Australia, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2017.
His PhD focused on the role of speckle tracking echocardiography in the clinical assessment of patients with cardiovascular disease. He has been a recipient of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ) Research Scholarship, as well as the National Health and Medical Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship. In 2021, his research work led him to being awarded the Cardiac Imaging Prize at the CSANZ annual scientific meeting, as well as the Young Investigator Award at Echo Asia.
Dr Annalise Unsworth
Alex Cohen Travel Grant in Internal Medicine ($10,000)
Infectious Diseases International Fellowship Oxford University Hospitals
Dr Annalise Unsworth completed her medical degree with honours at the University of New South Wales. She is currently an Infectious Diseases Advanced Trainee, who completed her basic training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and her first year of infectious diseases training at Royal North Shore Hospital.
She is travelling to the Oxford University Hospitals, United Kingdom for an international Fellowship in Infectious Diseases with a particular interest in bone and joint infections.