From left: Dr Charlotte Chen and Dr Annika Winbo
Congratulations to Dr Annika Winbo on her winning the Heart Foundation Fellowship for her research on examining ‘Neurocardiac arrhythmia mechanisms in the long QT syndrome (LQTS)’. She works with Associate Professor Johanna Montgomery.
Dr Winbo is a medical doctor with a PhD in Paediatrics with focus on Cardiac Inherited Disease. She has been working as a postdoctoral Research Fellow in Auckland since 2014 to establish techniques to study heart cells and sympathetic neurons derived from patient blood cells in the laboratory (currently on second 3-year post doc with funding from the Hugh Green Research Foundation, Cure Kids and the SJ Taylor Fund, School of Medicine Foundation).
Sudden cardiac death in inherited arrhythmia syndromes like the long QT syndrome is often triggered by the sympathetic nervous system’s “fight or flight response”, meaning that arrhythmia typically occurs in the setting of physical or emotional stress. Dr Winbo’s current research focusses on cellular mechanisms underlying ventricular arrhythmia, including how sympathetic nerve cells contribute to the pathophysiology of inherited arrhythmia syndromes.
Dr Charlotte Chen has just been awarded a $316,975 Clinical Research Training Fellowship from the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) to investigate the mechanism of breathlessness in patients suffering from interstitial lung disease. Breathlessness with physical activity is the most common symptom in these patients. Despite this, current therapeutic options are limited and many patients remain debilitated. As a doctor specialising in Respiratory Medicine at Auckland City Hospital, Dr Chen knows first-hand the burden of chronic respiratory disease in New Zealand. This HRC Fellowship will help her complete her PhD at the University of Auckland. She hopes the results will improve the quality of life and outcomes for these patients. Her studies will be supervised by Dr James Fisher, Prof John Kolbe and Prof Julian Paton.