St Vincents Private Hospitals

Biography

Professor Robert Graham is a highly-qualified cardiologist who received his training both in Australia and internationally. He was awarded a medical degree from the University of NSW, before going on to train at St Vincent’s and Sydney Hospitals, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1978, Robert was appointed Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at UT, and then Associate Professor for Medicine, Cellular and Molecular Research Laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 1982, before moving to the Cleveland Clinic as the Robert C Tarazi Chairman, Molecular Cardiology Department and  Professor, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Since returning to Australia in the 1994, Robert has held appointments as the inaugural Executive Director at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute (until 2020) and the Des Renford Professor of Medicine at UNSW.

He actively pursues his research interests in molecular cardiology, with emphasis on circulatory control mechanisms, hypertension, receptor signalling and hypertrophy, and has recently been involved in studies of cardiac regeneration and the use of stem cells for treatment of heart disease. His major clinic research interests are in the management, pathophysiology, genetics and psychosocial sequelae of spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), an increasingly recognised cause of a heart attack that mainly affects younger women, who have few risk factors. To that end, he now follows a cohort of some 650 SCAD survivors Australia-wide.