Member Spotlight: Garry Jennings
Garry Jennings is a senior academic and Chief Medical Advisor at the Heart Foundation, with honorary roles at Sydney and Monash Universities and long-standing affiliations in cardiovascular health. He has been a member of Hypertension Australia since its inception in 1979.
What inspired your interest in Hypertension?
I generally have taken the line of least resistance in career choices. I trained in cardiology at St Mary’s and the Baker Institute, two of the top institutions in hypertension research at the time with wonderful mentors. As a student I was interested in mechanisms of diseased and was unsatisfied with the explanations provided. I love being a clinician and being a researcher and have been fortunate to divide my career equally between the two and to collaborate with outstanding investigators (you know who you are!).
Tell us about your research or initiatives focused on preventing, detecting, and managing high blood pressure and its complications.
My interests have covered basic, clinical and public health cardiovascular research, prevention, treatment and policy. Particular contributions include efficacy and mechanisms of the benefits of physical activity, sympathetic pathophysiology of CVD, vascular biology, clinical pharmacology of anti-hypertensives and some of the earliest clinical trials globally of major drug classes. Translation and implementation have been a preoccupation throughout with the emergence of implementation science providing a recent focus at Sydney Health Partners. As Director of the Baker Institute I founded Nucleus Network, now a large commercial entity conducting early phase clinical trials in centres in Australia and the U.S.
My research is: “very wide, not very deep.”
Have you received any awards, grants, or publications for your work related to Hypertension?
- AO
- Bjorn Folkow Award, Joint ESH/ISH meeting
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Some golf, lots of time at the beach.
Do you have any travel adventures or bucket list destinations you're hoping to experience?
Anywhere that does not regularly host cardiovascular conferences!
What's the last great book you read, movie you saw, or show you watched?
Just finished ‘Team of Rivals, the political genius of Abraham Lincoln’ by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Spoiler alert- it has a surprise ending!
Where can we find out more about your work with Hypertension?
See Google Scholar or Web of Science