Associate Professor Yugeesh Lankadeva
PhD, MBA, BioMed (Hons)
Group Head
Location
Parkville Campus
30 Royal Parade
Parkville Victoria 3052
Research group
Translational Cardiovascular and Renal Research Group
Biography
Associate Professor Yugeesh Lankadeva is a National Heart Foundation Future-Leader Fellow and leads the Translational Cardiovascular and Renal Research Group at The Florey. His research aims to understand the pathophysiology of brain and kidney injury arising from severe infections (sepsis), cardiac surgery requiring the heart-lung machine (cardiopulmonary bypass) and heart disease (heart failure). Armed with this knowledge, he hopes to develop novel diagnostics and therapeutics to improve patient-centred health outcomes.
Associate Professor Lankadeva has over 60 publications in high-impact medical journals including Circulation, British Journal of Anaesthesia; Anaesthesia and Analgesia; American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine; Intensive Care Medicine; Critical Care Medicine; Kidney International. The quality and clinical relevance of his work has been acknowledged by the award of more than $13 million of funding. His discoveries have translated to 10 clinical trials across Australia, Europe, USA, and Japan.
He is an inventor on 3 patents and has received over 20 prestigious career awards from the National Heart Foundation of Australia, Hypertension Australia, Australian and New Zealand Microcirculation Society, World Congress for Microcirculation, Harold Mitchell Foundation, CASS Foundation and Jack Brockhoff Foundation. In addition, Associate Professor Lankadeva currently holds appointments as the Head of Systems Neuroscience Theme at the Florey, Co-chair of Florey’s Mentoring Committee, and Principal Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Critical Care, Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne.
As a Sri Lankan immigrant, Associate Professor Lankadeva is passionate about engaging in consumer outreach activities for non-English speaking Sri Lankans (SBS Sinhala: [2022]) and for inspiring Sri Lankan high school students to pursue careers in medical research in Australia [2021-2023].
Career highlights
Current roles
- Theme Head of Systems Neuroscience
- Head of Translational Cardiovascular and Renal Research Group
- Co-Chair of Florey’s Mentoring Committee
- Young Investigator Representative and Executive Conference Organizing Committee for the Australian and New Zealand Microcirculation Society
- Editor for Frontiers in Nephrology & Frontiers in Renal Physiology
Past roles
- Co-Chair of Florey’s Postdoctoral Association
- Young Investigator Representative for Hypertension Australia
Other highlights
- High international rankings in research fields [source – Expertscape], including Sepsis (Top 0.087% of 203,927 authors), Acute kidney injury (Top 0.15% of 90,070 authors), Cardiopulmonary bypass (Top 0.29% of 22,952 authors), Hypoxia (Top 0.29% of 108,561 authors), Renal circulation (Top 0.29% of 6,127 authors)
- Invitations to speak at premier international conferences including Asia Pacific Intensive Care (2022); International Society of Hypertension (2021); American Society of Nephrology (2020); World Congress for Intensive Care (2019); Joint Asia/Australia Vascular Biology (2019); Renal Support for the Critically ill (2018), 10th and 11th World Congresses for Microcirculation (2015 & 2018), Experimental Biology (2016) and British Hypertension Society (2015).
- Media outreach includes delegate for HBPRCA in Federal parliament (2017) and Florey in Victorian State Parliament (2019). Media releases by ABC [2020-2021], Bloomberg [2019], Pursuit [2021], 3RRR [2021] Public Lectures [2021], and Heart Foundation [2018-2022].
Research project
Awards and achievements
- 2023-2028 — Early-to-Mid Career Medical Research Future Fund Grant (Chief Investigator A)
- 2023-2026 — Cardiovascular Health Mission Medical Research Future Fund Grant (Chief Investigator A)
- 2022-2026 — Cardiovascular Health Mission Medical Research Future Fund Grant (Chief Investigator C)
- 2022-2026 — National Heart Foundation Future Leader, Level 2, Fellowship (sole Chief Investigator A)
- 2022-2024 — National Heart Foundation Vanguard Grant (Chief Investigator A)
- 2021 — Paul Korner Innovation Award from the National Heart Foundation in recognition of the Top Ranked Future Leader, Level 2, Fellowship in Australia
- 2021 — John Casley-Smith Award from the Australian and New Zealand Microcirculation Society in recognition for the Most Significant Scientific Contribution at the 21st Scientific Conference
- 2021-2023 — National Heart Foundation, Vanguard Grant, (Chief Investigator A)
- 2020 — Editor’s Recognition Award from the Journal of Microcirculation for the Top Cited Paper in 2020
- 2020 — CASS Foundation Postdoctoral Travel Fellowship to deliver an invited faculty presentation at the Asia-Pacific Intensive Care Symposium in Singapore
- 2020-2023 — National Health and Medical Research Council, Ideas Grant (Chief Investigator A)
- 2020-2023 — National Health and Medical Research Council, Ideas Grant (Chief Investigator B)
- 2017 — David Garlick EMCR Oral Presentation Award from Australia and New Zealand Microcirculation Society Conference
- 2017 — Harold Mitchell Foundation Postdoctoral Travel Fellowship to deliver an invited presentation at the 11th World Congress for Microcirculation Conference in Vancouver, Canad
- 2015 — Young Investigator Award of Excellence from the 10th World Congress for Microcirculation Conference, in recognition of an outstanding achievement by an Early Career Investigator in the field of Microcirculation, Kyoto, Japan
- 2015 — Associate Professor Michael Perry Invited Speaker Award from the Australia and New Zealand Microcirculation Society (ANZMS) to represent ANZMS at the 10th World Congress for Microcirculation Conference, Kyoto, Japan
- 2015 — Best Early Career Researcher Oral Presentation Award from the Australia and New Zealand Microcirculation Society Conference, New South Wales, Australia
- 2014 — British Hypertension Society (BHS) Prize from Hypertension Australia Conference to represent this Australian society at the BHS Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
- 2014 — Best Early Career Investigator Oral Presentation Award from Hypertension Australia, Adelaide, Australia