This week we’re thrilled to speak with one of the busiest (and most wonderful) scientists we know: Associate Professor Francine Marques. Francine is a Viertel Charitable Foundation and National Heart Foundation Fellow, and head of the Hypertension Research Laboratory at Monash University. She has published >90 peer-reviewed papers in top journals such as Nature Reviews Cardiology, Nature Medicine and Circulation, and has secured $7 million in competitive funding.

Francine has won 25 awards including the 2019 American Heart Association Hypertension Council Goldblatt Award, 2020 High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia and 2021 International Society of Hypertension Mid-Career Awards, and the 2021 Australian Academy of Science Gottschalk Medal. Her team investigates the molecular mechanisms behind the development of high blood pressure, with a focus on disease identification and prevention via the gut microbiota using both animal studies and clinical trials.

Francine is also the co-program manager for the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia, the chair of the International Society of Hypertension Mentoring and Training Committee, and an elected member of the steering committee for the Gordon Research Conference on Angiotensin. Francine is an amazing science communicator and is passionate about effective and compassionate leadership in science – you can read her lab manual which we discussed here: https://www.marqueslab.com/manual.

You call follow Francine and find out more about her work here:

https://twitter.com/fzmarques

Transcript: https://go.unimelb.edu.au/74pe