Congratulations to Dr Xuyu (Johnny) Liu, Unit Leader at the Heart Research Institute (HRI), who has been awarded funding from The Hillcrest Foundation and the Walter and Eileen Ralston Trust.
The combined funding of almost $92,000 will help advance his project to develop safer and more effective treatments for stroke derived from nature.
“We are thrilled to receive this grant, which will fund our research that is focused on exploring how natural products benefit cardiovascular health and reduce stroke risk,” Dr Liu said.
“We want to understand how nature is giving us gifts to improve our health. Already we have identified and studied more than 50 natural compounds isolated from heart healthy diets that look promising in treating thrombotic diseases.”
Stroke is the second leading cause of death and disability globally. According to the Stroke Foundation, stroke affects one Australian every 19 minutes and costs our economy $6.2 billion per year.
About 85 per cent of strokes are caused by the formation of a harmful blood clot (thrombus) in the brain (also known as acute ischaemic stroke).
“After a patient has an ischaemic stroke, they are treated with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a type of clot busting medication to slow down the progression of damage to the brain. Unfortunately, it is only successful in 30 per cent of cases,” Dr Liu explained.
As a result, new treatments for stroke are desperately needed.
Dr Liu’s project will specifically look at a treatment that combines tPA and sulforaphane (SFN) – a natural compound derived from broccoli. This combination aims to improve the success rate of dissolving blood clots with minimal bleeding risks.
“It is essential that we use a precision-based approach to make the new agent as potent and safe as possible,” Dr Liu added. “Our team has developed specialised screening programs and research models that enable us to carry out this work successfully.”
Dr Liu leads the Cardiovascular-protective Signalling and Drug Discovery Unit at HRI and is also a Conjoint Senior Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow at The University of Sydney.
The project will be carried out at both HRI and the School of Chemistry at The University of Sydney.
Funding for this work is generously provided by The Hillcrest Foundation and the Walter and Eileen Ralston Trust.
