ISSHP World Congress 2027: South Africa

Lineup

• More details about Prof Stephen Tong

  Prof Stephen Tong

  Mercy Perinatal Professor Stephen Tong is the Co-Director of Mercy Perinatal. He is a Professor of Obstetrics at The University of Melbourne and an obstetrician at Mercy Hospital for Women. As a clinician scientist and an academic obstetrician, Stephen is keenly focused on developing diagnostics and therapeutics for major pregnancy complications. He has a profound interest in finding new treatments for preeclampsia and developing a diagnostic test for placental health.

  • Prof Stephen Tong's website
• More details about Prof Sue Walker AO

  Prof Sue Walker AO

  Mercy Perinatal Professor Sue Walker AO FAAHMS is the Head of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Newborn Health at The University of Melbourne since 2016 and is also the Chair of the Division of Perinatal Medicine at the Mercy Hospital for Women. She was appointed to the Sheila Handbury Chair of Maternal Fetal Medicine, University of Melbourne in 2011. She is currently co-Director of Mercy Perinatal, a centre of excellence in clinical care, education and research in high-risk pregnancy. Her research interests include improved detection of fetal growth disorders, new treatments for preeclampsia, and reducing the burden of preventable stillbirth.

  • Prof Sue Walker AO's website
  • Prof Sue Walker AO's linkedin
  • Prof Sue Walker AO's x
• More details about Prof Cathy Cluver

  Prof Cathy Cluver

  Stellenbosch University, South Africa Professor Cathy Cluver is a Maternal-Fetal Medicine subspecialist and clinician researcher. She founded and continues to lead the Preeclampsia Research Unit at Stellenbosch University (www.preeclampsiaresearch.org). The Preeclampsia Research Unit is a multidisciplinary multinational research collaboration focussing on understanding and treating preeclampsia. Cathy obtained her MMed in 2011 cum laude and was awarded both the Daubenton Medal for outstanding results in the Fellowship examination of the College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the medal for the Best Postgraduate Student for a Structures Masters Qualification at Stellenbosch University. In 2013 she undertook a Maternal Fetal Medicine Fellowship at Mercy Hospital for Women, in Melbourne Australia. She then completed her subspecialist training in South Africa in 2016. After completing her PhD in 2019, she was appointed as an associate professor. In 2023 she was appointed as a full professor at Stellenbosch University. She is the youngest appointed professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

  • Prof Cathy Cluver's website
• More details about Prof Lina Bergman

  Prof Lina Bergman

  Lina is currently working as a senior consultant in obstetrics at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital and is Associate professor at University of Gothenburg and Stellenbosch University. Lina’s research interests focus in the field of preeclampsia but also extends to other obstetric complications such as preterm birth. Lina’s research is translational, working with both pre-clinical scientists and epidemiologists to answer complex clinical questions. She has a special interest in the maternal brain in pregnancy and preeclampsia where she collaborates with Teelkien van Veen, Carlos Escudero and Joakim EK in order to combine in vitro models, animal models and clinical studies to understand the underlying pathophysiological pathways and possible predictors to cerebral complications in pregnancy and preeclampsia. Lina is investigator for PROVE, a biobank and database at Tygerberg University hospital for women with preeclampsia and organ complications, GO PROVE, a sister study to PROVE in Gothenburg and IMPACT, a nationwide Swedish cohort study for prediction of obstetrical complications in the first trimester. Lina is principal investigator for the Nordic multicenter PI 4 trial, investigating metformin to prolong gestation in preterm preeclampsia. Lina is also working with Anna Karin Wikström and Susanne Hesselman in register-based research in the Swedish Pregnancy Register and national Swedish registers in order to answer questions about the impact of pregnancy on short- and longterm outcome for the mother and offspring.

• More details about Prof Ananth Karumanchi

  Prof Ananth Karumanchi

  Ananth is an independent investigator with an active research laboratory for >25 years, focusing on discovering pathogenic pathways and bringing therapies to patients in the areas of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and kidney diseases Research activities are vertically integrated, ranging from molecular and cell biological studies to animal models, epidemiological studies and frist-in-class human clinical trials. Ananth has over 350 publications (H index =133) & research supported by HHMI, NIH, AHA, Gates foundation and industry with 15 issued patents in biomedicine. He is Co-director of NIH training grant for Kidney, Urology and Hematology at UCLA/Cedars-Sinai.

• More details about Prof Gordon Smith

  Prof Gordon Smith

  Professor Gordon Smith is Head of Department, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Cambridge. His research interests include developing novel methods of screening for placentally-related complications of pregnancy, application of omics methods to biological samples from human pregnancy, prospective studies of unselected nulliparous women, and statistical and economic modelling.

• More details about Prof Laura Magee

  Prof Laura Magee

  Laura Magee returned to the UK in 2015 after completing her training around the work, as Professor of Maternal Medicine, St George’s, University of London, moving to become Professor of Women’s Health, King’s College London in September 2017. Her research (more than 450 publications to date) has focussed on pregnancy hypertension and medical complications more broadly, using varied study designs, from evidence syntheses to surveys, qualitative research, randomised trials, and implementation studies. Laura has held numerous high-profile leadership positions in the UK and abroad, including Principal Investigator of the international Control of Hypertension In Pregnancy Study (CHIPS) that has changed international guidance in pregnancy; Director of the Canadian Perinatal Network; President of the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy (ISSHP); and Chair of the Maternal Medicine Clinical Study Group, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and Diabetes in Pregnancy Working Group, Diabetes UK. She is collaborative by nature, and leads through hard work in clinical and research realms. Her experiences span organisations in Canada and the UK, from stand-alone maternity hospitals to tertiary referral centres, always within multidisciplinary teams.

• More details about Prof Tu'uhevaha Kaitu'u-Lino

  Prof Tu'uhevaha Kaitu'u-Lino

  Tu'uhevaha co-leads the Translational Obstetrics group alongside Prof Stephen Tong within the research arm of Mercy Perinatal. She leads research programs that span national and international sites, ensuring her work is globally relevant. The focus of Tu’uhevaha and the team’s broader research fits under 3 main themes. - Towards better understanding the pathogenesis of pregnancy complications. - Developing diagnostic/predictive tools for pregnancy. - New Treatments for preeclampsia. Tu'uhe has been published widely (>145 peer reviewed publications) in many areas including ectopic pregnancy, preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction. She has attracted over $14.5 million dollars in grant funding that has supported the team’s research efforts, including numerous prestigious national fellowships (NHMRC, ARC). She is also a University of Melbourne Dame Kate Campbell fellow. Prof Kaitu’u-Lino also takes pride in mentoring the next generation of scientists and clinician scientists through undergraduate and HDR supervision.

• More details about A/Prof Roxanne Hastie

  A/Prof Roxanne Hastie

  A/Prof Roxanne Hastie is an NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow, a perinatal epidemiologist and laboratory-based scientist. Based at the Mercy Hospital for Women, Roxanne co-leads a growing cross disciplinary team that combines these fields to drive translational research aimed at improving the treatment and management of pregnancy complications. Roxanne is passionate about improving maternal and child health globally, she holds an honorary position with the Uppsala University, Sweden and works closely with researchers from Scotland, South Africa, the Solomon Islands and Pakistan. Her core research themes are 1) investigating the effects of commonly used medications on maternal and offspring outcomes, with focus on the treatment of mental illness during pregnancy, 2) identifying new therapeutics for preeclampsia and 3) driving research to improve maternal health in low resource settings.

• More details about Dr Own Herrock

  Dr Own Herrock

  Owen is a postdoctoral fellow with Lina Bergman at the University of Gothenburg. Owen earned his PhD from the University of Mississippi Medical Center where he studied the involvement of inflammation in cardiovascular dysfunction in preeclampsia. His main research focus is how inflammatory mediators induce vascular dysfunction and how this process contributes to cardiovascular disease in preeclampsia.