Heart Research Australia raises funds for innovative research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.

Our goal is to reduce the devastating impact heart disease has on families and the community. The focus is seed-funding for cardiac researchers to investigate new areas. The aim is to make their work competitive for grants from national bodies such as the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Our Vision

Making breakthroughs in heart disease happen.

Our Mission

We support world class and emerging researchers to conduct ground-breaking research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.

We Support:

Seed Funding

First-stage or ‘seed’ funding allows researchers to turn their innovative, ‘out of the notebook’ ideas into reality. As this type of first-stage research does not qualify for government funding, we are solely reliant on the generosity of our wonderful supporters to help make the investigation of such ideas possible.

PhD Scholarships

We provide scholarships for PhD students whose research work is supervised by our leading cardiac researchers. In this way, we play an integral role in nurturing and developing some of Australia’s most promising heart health scientists.

‘Bench to Bedside’

All of our senior researchers are also practising clinical cardiologists, which puts them in the best position to identify research opportunities and immediately translate their discoveries ‘on the bench’ into benefits for patients ‘at the bedside’. The breakthroughs they make contribute to and inspire the international body of knowledge on cardiac research.

Advances in Research and Treatment

We fund a range of different cutting edge research areas – prevention strategies, diagnosis methodologies and technology, and treatment types. In the 1960’s, the death rate from heart disease peaked , causing over 50% of deaths in Australia. Thanks to the increasing advances in heart research and treatment, this rate has been steadily declining to the 33% rate it is today. But there is still much to do. Heart disease still remains the leading cause of death worldwide – far more than any other disease, and the rising levels of obesity and diabetes in adults and children makes the need for breakthroughs even more pressing.

Evidence of how our funded research saves lives

An outstanding example of the long-term benefits created by Heart Research Australia is the SALAMI project- Stents as an Alternative to Lytic therapy in Acute Myocardial Infarcation (stents used as an alternative to drug therapy) and ETAMI project (Early Triage of Acute Myocardial Infarction) procedure for heart attack victims (also known as early treatment in ambulances).

Stent treatments pioneered by Heart Research Australia have helped dramatically reduce death rates from Heart Attacks at Royal North Shore Hospital and are now standard practice.

ETAMI allows patients to be assessed and triaged in the ambulance, using ECG diagnosis transmitted via mobile phone technology. ETAMI saves significant time (up to 100 mins) from incident to treatment and saves heart muscle from irreversible damage by opening up the coronary artery earlier.

The stent procedure in conjunction with the ECG in the ambulance transmitting results directly to the hospital are treatments that were due to research breakthroughs funded by Heart Research Australia thanks to the generosity of our donors.

The combination of these treatments used together reduced death rates from heart attacks at Royal North Shore Hospital from 30% to a staggering 2% and is now standard practice in hospitals around Australia.