Dr Kafa Walweel

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Prince Charles Hospital Northside Clinical Unit
Faculty of Medicine

Overview

Dr Walweel is an electrophysiologist specializing in calcium-released channels (RyR2) regulation in heart. Walweel's research project is to understand how RyR2 regulates heart contraction and rhythm, how their dysregulation leads to cardiac arrhythmias, and how pharmacological interventions targeting RyR2 restore normal heart rhythm. She is expert in bilayer work, single channel recording and biochemistry. Walweel's discoveries are clinically important for understanding arrhythmia generation in patients with heart failure and CPVT. Dr Walweel works with the purpose to promote human heart research and health. She aims to reduce heart failure burden and death by advancing pathophysiological research and discovering suitable medication to prevent arrhythmias. Over a relatively short time, Dr Walweel's research resulted in notable and meritorious publications in high quality journals (JACC, Circ Res, Mol Pharmacol, J Gen Physiol, J Mol Cell Cardiol and J Biomed Sciences).

Research Interests

  • • Reduce the burden of arrhythmias and sudden death
    o Identify novel cardiovascular therapeutic targets o Discover new medicines to prevent sudden death o Translate molecular discoveries to the clinic

Publications

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Publications

Journal Article

Conference Publication

  • Hoe, L. E. See, Wells, M. A., Bouquet, M., Hyslop, K., Passmore, M. R., Bartnikowski, N., Obonyo, N. G., Reid, J., O'Neill, H., Shuker, T., McDonald, C., Engkilde-Pedersen, S., Wildi, K., Ainola, C., Skeggs, K., Jung, J., Colombo, S., Sato, K., James, L., He, P., Wood, E. S., Heinser, S., Wang, X., Abbate, G., Livingstone, S., Haymet, A., Walweel, K., Mullins, D., Marasco, S. ... Fraser, J. F. (2020). Metabolic and mitochondrial alterations following brain death and heart transplantation. 40th Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT), Montreal, Canada, 22-25 April 2020. Philadelphia, PA, United States: Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/j.healun.2020.01.419

Grants (Administered at UQ)