Announcing the 2024 NHMRC Ideas Grants recipients

Media release: Friday 20 December 2025

Celebrating Heart Foundation alumni

The Heart Foundation is proud to celebrate the incredible achievements of our currently and previously funded researchers as they continue to excel in their fields.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) announced the recipients of their 2024 Ideas Grants, with $274 million awarded to 223 innovative projects addressing specific questions in health and medical research. This funding supports researchers at all career stages, fostering creativity and collaboration to tackle pressing health challenges and deliver discoveries that improve the health of Australians.

We are especially proud to see several researchers and their teams, who are current recipients or who have previously received Heart Foundation funding, recognised with this prestigious support.

Congratulations to the following researchers and their teams for this well-deserved recognition:

• Dr Thanh Nho Do – Early Detection and Treatment of Epithelial Carcinomas with a Micro-Endoscopic Soft Robot
• A/Prof Phillip Tully – Mind the gap: building a suicide prevention framework in cardiovascular care
• A/Prof Isuru Ranasinghe – Safety, Effectiveness of Care, and Resource Use Associated with Elective Hospital Procedural Care (SAFER Elective Care)
• Dr Gonzalo del Monte Nieto – Exploring the proliferation potential of trabecular myocardium
• Dr Dorothea Dumuid – Not everyone has the same 24 hours in a day: Addressing time inequality through AI-based personalised time-use interventions
• Prof Xiaowei Wang – Innovative tri-functional and tri-spectral imaging of cardiovascular diseases: A targeted 19-fluorine molecular magnetic resonance imaging approach
• Prof Christopher Sobey - Post-menopausal hypertension: targeting the G protein-coupled estrogen receptor to prevent cognitive impairment
• A/Prof Nathan Palpant - Acid sensing ion channels regulate organ stress responses to ischemia
• Dr Holly Voges – Heart valve organoids to identify therapeutic targets for Rheumatic Heart Disease

These groundbreaking projects represent a diverse range of ideas, from addressing gaps in cardiovascular care to developing life-saving therapies and exploring new approaches to understanding and treating diseases.

Heart Foundation CEO, David Lloyd shared his pride in the achievements of our alumni:

The Heart Foundation is committed to investing in the brightest minds and the most promising ideas in cardiovascular research. Congratulations to these researchers for receiving national recognition through the NHMRC Ideas Grants.

David Lloyd

CEO, Heart Foundation

We congratulate all recipients of NHMRC funding and are particularly proud of those who are part of the Heart Foundation research community.

We look forward to seeing their work continue to make a difference in the lives of people in Australia and beyond.

Join us in supporting lifesaving research

The Heart Foundation remains committed to funding the brightest minds and the most promising ideas in cardiovascular research. Together, we can continue to drive innovation and improve the heart health of everyone in Australia.