About Professor Roland Stocker
Scientific research continues to excite me because it provides endless opportunities for asking interesting and novel questions, and it gives the investigator a unique and infectious thrill of finding out the answer to the question posed in a unbiased and often completely unexpected manner.
Oxidative stress in atherosclerotic vascular research
1. Academic Qualifications:
- Dipl. Natw. ETH (1981, Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland)
- PhD (1985, Australian National University)
- Chair of Biochemistry in Vascular Medicine, The University of Sydney (2007-)
- The University of Sydney Professorial Research Fellow (2007-)
- The University of Sydney Medical Foundation Fellow (2007-)
- Post-doctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley; Sponsor: Prof Bruce Ames (1986-1987)
- Assistant Professor, University of Berne, Switzerland (1987-1988)
- Principal Investigator since 1988
- Group Leader, The Heart Research Institute (1988-2002)
- NH&MRC Research Fellow since 1994 (currently SPRF)
- Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales (2002-2006)
- 215 since 1982, of which 165 are peer-reviewed, original research papers; 23 are invited reviews and articles, and 27 are book chapters.
- 12,400 including 4 Citation Classics (>500 citations); 28 cited more than 100 times; 57 more than 50 times, with an average of 57 citations per article.
- Former Olympian (Rowing, 6th Place) and 11-times national champion (Switzerland)
- Former Rowing coach (3 Australian National Championships, 1 Representation at world championships)
- Father of two daughters, one doing a PhD (Pharmacology, USyd) and the other doing Bachelor of Arts (Media Communication, USyd) and being world rowing champion in 2006
Since moving to Australia in 1988, the work of Roland’s laboratory has received continuous funding from competitive national (NHMRC, ARC, NHF) and international agencies (NIH). For the last 12 years, he also received commercial research support, including major pharmaceutical companies. Roland has received several awards, including the inaugural Simon Wolff Contrarian Award for work on vitamin E, and several from the NHF for highest ranked grant applications. Highlights of the more than 80 invitations to present at international meetings include four presentations at Gordon Research Conferences, two at each FASEB Conferences, the Biennial Meetings of the International Society for Free Radical Research (ISFRR) and the International Symposia of Atherosclerosis, and presentations at a Harden Conference and the International Symposium on Organic Free Radicals. The many invitations to write reviews on the role of antioxidants and oxidants in atherosclerosis include one for the prestigious journal Physiol Rev.Roland is recognized internationally as an expert in redox biology, particularly for his research on antioxidants, and mechanisms and prevention of atherosclerotic vascular disease. Roland’s work on bilirubin as a natural antioxidant is now referred to in biochemistry textbooks and it has contributed to a change in the threshold at which hyperbilirubinemia is treated in clinics. His work on vitamin E has changed the handling of parenteral nutrition in NICUs in New Zealand/Australia, and it provides a scientific rationale for the overall lack of benefit of vitamin E supplements on cardiovascular disease outcome.