Celebrating the official launch of the HEART Lab

A new world class Heart Exercise and Research Trials (HEART) Laboratory has been established thanks to a collaborative partnership between SVI and the Victor Change Cardiac Research Institute.  

Its team of scientists and clinicians have a wide-ranging mission that will better protect the hearts of all Australians, deliver impact the world over and accelerate research into the nation’s biggest killer – heart disease.  

The team is focused on discovering why our hearts can suddenly stop and how we can prevent heart failure in high-risk patients.  

They’re investigating a deadly heart rhythm that will affect one in three of us during our lifetimes and are undertaking innovative research that will keep our sports stars and budding athletes’ hearts healthy.  

The new HEART Lab is led by Professor Andre La Gerche – a world leader in sports cardiology, and sudden cardiac arrest, which kills nine out of 10 people who suffer an episode outside of hospital.  

Joining him is Dr Liz Paratz – a rising star in the field of sudden cardiac arrest and a clinician who is working directly with survivors and families who have lost loved ones.  

Their teams of researchers will work alongside scientists and clinicians on the St Vincent’s Melbourne campus. They will also collaborate with researchers at VCCRI and utilise its cutting-edge heart disease technology.  

This innovative partnership will accelerate our understanding of heart disease, resulting in new treatments and cures that will have a global impact. 

“Our HEART Lab has the potential to save so many lives and deliver answers to families across Australia. Heart disease takes the lives of one in four Australians but through world-class research like ours we are far closer to preventing it from causing so much devastation.”

The heart disease crisis  

Heart disease is Australia’s biggest killer with one Australian losing their life every 28 minutes.  

Despite advances in treatments and cures, three times as many women die from heart disease than breast cancer and around 6,000 Australians will die from a heart attack each year.  

Shockingly, the death toll for sudden cardiac arrest is far higher – with 22,000 people losing their lives each year in Australia. Nine of out of 10 people who have a sudden cardiac arrest outside of hospital don’t survive, making this one of the most critically under appreciated diseases in Australia.  

With the cost of cardiovascular disease to the Australian health system around $12 billion every year, it’s vital we find new ways to tackle the country’s most pressing health crisis.