Within SAHMRI, Professor Steve Nicholls is the inaugural SAHMRI Heart Foundation Heart Health Theme Leader and the Director of the Vascular Research Centre, whose mission is to develop new strategies to reduce the risk of heart disease involving a translational program spanning preclinical human and clinical trial research.

Professor Nicholls and team are working to develop a research program that will advance the ability to prevent, detect and treat a range of cardiovascular disease states.

In particular, the team is bringing together laboratory-based scientists, clinical researchers and clinical trialists to develop translational research programs that will seek to improve our ability to tackle the major challenges of diseases of blood vessels, diseases that lead to heart failure and electrical disorders of the heart.