Associate Professor Elisabeth Lambert

Biography

A/Prof Elisabeth Lambert joined the School of Health Science and Iverson Health Innovation Research Institute in February 2017. She previously worked at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute for 18 years. Elisabeth’s research program focusses on mechanisms, treatments and prevention of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, with a particular interest on the role played by the sympathetic nervous system in the development of metabolic abnormalities and organ damage. She has led multiple clinical cross-sectional, and interventional investigations in various conditions such as hypertension, obesity, type-2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease, orthostatic intolerance, anorexia nervosa as well as studies in people living with intellectual disability. She has published around 200 papers and has been a chief investigator on 12 NHMRC grants.

Recent major achievements of her group include:

• Refinement and application of techniques for identifying brain areas involved in muscle sympathetic nerve activity in the context of hypertension and obesity (NHMRC Idea grant 2022-2024). Techniques include direct nerve recording using microneurography, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
• Demonstration that young women with anorexia and those who have recovered from the condition have enhanced arterial stiffness, a marker of vascular aging.
• Demonstration that young normotensive individuals with excess adiposity have subclinical organ damage (cardiac, renal and endothelial) and that the degree of organ dysfunction is directly related to the degree of sympathetic activation.
• Demonstration of the link between sympathetic activity and endothelial dysfunction in women with dyslipidemia.