Cassandra Malecki, Research Assistant, The Baird Institute
I grew up in Sydney and completed a Bachelor of Medical Science at the University of Sydney, majoring in pathology. I completed my honors year in the Aortic Research Group at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney, under Associate Professor Brett Hambly and Professor Richmond Jeremy. The Aortic group has a focus on investigating various factors that may alter the severity of aneurysms of the thoracic aorta, particularly in patients with the genetic connective tissue disorder, Marfan Syndrome. After a very successful and enjoyable honours’ year, I decided to continue with a PhD in the same group and earlier this year submitted my PhD thesis which is currently under examination.
I was fortunate enough to be offered a job as a research assistant with The Baird Institute in the Cardiovascular group (headed by Dr Sean Lal, Professor Paul Bannon and Professor Richmond Jeremy), to continue my research journey in the cardiovascular field, with a particular interest in heart failure and cardiac aging. Along with assisting with projects and experiments that are currently underway in the Lal lab, a major part of my role involves collecting precious human heart and aortic tissue samples and managing the Sydney Heart Bank database. Throughout my PhD, I spent a lot of time collecting human aortic tissue which I was lucky enough to then use throughout my research projects and therefore I am very excited to still be involved in managing such an important biomedical research resource that is the Sydney Heart Bank.
This is another important investment in the team which supports the high-impact research conducted by our researchers. Our wonderful supporters have made this investment possible.
