Two past Metcalf Prize winners - cardiologist and researcher Prof James Chong and bioengineer Prof James Hudson - have been announced as the two winners of the 2024 Jian Zhou Medal from the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS).
The Foundation created the Metcalf Prizes to support promising researchers at the pivotal mid-career research stage. James Chong and James Hudson have had great success since then. For example, James Chong was awarded $4.9 million by the Medical Research Future Fund 2020 Stem Cell Mission to continue his work and James Hudson was awarded an $8 million fellowship from the Snow Medical Research Foundation.
They were also panellists for our webinar event Future Medicine: Healing the heart, sharing their research and answering questions from the online audience:
Here is the Jian Zhou Medal announcement from AAHMS, reproduced with permission.
Transformative research to treat the human heart has been honoured with the 2024 Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences Jian Zhou Medal.
Awarded this year to interventional cardiologist Professor James Chong and cardiac bioengineer Professor James Hudson, the award recognises scientists making an impact in translational medical research. The medal is named in honour of cervical cancer vaccine co-inventor Professor Jian Zhou, who worked alongside award founder Professor Ian Frazer.
Cardiovascular disease is one of Australia’s biggest health problems, causing one in four of all deaths.
Professor Chong, head of the Cardiac Regeneration Laboratory at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research, is best known for being the first to show the feasibility of pluripotent-stem-cell-derived-cardiomyocytes (PSC-CM) as a therapeutic option to treat heart failure.
His research centres on developing treatments for repairing and regenerating the heart. Professor Chong has filed patents and industry collaborations that have pushed his program towards commercialisation, as well as having significant scientific impact.
“It is a great honour to receive this award, particularly as a physician-scientist with aspirations to have real like clinical impact like Professor Zhou and Professor Frazer have had,” Professor Chong said.
“I have had many small “ah-ha” moments in science, but I’m still waiting for the big one!
“One of these small moments was realising we were able to produce our stem cell derived heart muscle cells in clinical scale (which means hundreds of millions of cells).
“It was even better to see that they could survive transplantation into the injured heart and helped regenerate its function. At the time people said it wasn’t possible and now seeing early clinical trials emerge is very rewarding.
“I want to keep making discoveries that will hopefully lead to eventual clinical therapies.”
Professor Chong is also an Academy mentee, have been selected for the AAHMS Mentorship Program in 2022.
Professor James Hudson, a Group Leader at QIMR Berghofer, is known internationally for his research in cardiac bioengineering, specifically for his work developing miniature human cardiac tissues from human stem cells efforts.
He has developed techniques that provide faithful models of adult human disease, enhancing understanding of how the human heart works and leading to new drug candidates to treat cardiac issues.
“There have been a few incredible moments in my scientific career – making 3D tissues from our cardiomyocyte differentiation protocol for the first time, identification of a compound that drives a massive regeneration response and identification of drugs that block inflammation induced heart failure,” Professor Hudson said.
“Cardiovascular disease is very complex. The road to heart failure is very different in different patients. Our goal is to decipher this complexity using our ‘Cardiopedia’ we are generating using the organoids, and eventually have truly patient matched drugs that work for every patient.
“There are a lot of fantastic high-quality researchers in Australia. Recognition as one of Australia’s leading scientists by winning this award is therefore truly humbling.”
The Jian Zhou and is awarded annually to recognise rising stars in Australian health and medical science. The award is made possible by a generous donation from the Frazer Family Foundation and the medal is designed and minted by the Royal Australian Mint.
Nominations for the 2025 medal will open in October this year. Learn more about the Jian Zhou Medal.
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