Professor Yugeesh Lankadeva

Biography

Professor Yugeesh Lankadeva is a National Health and Medical Research Council Emerging Leader Fellow and a National Heart Foundation Future-Leader Fellow, and leads the Translational Cardiovascular and Renal Research Group at The Florey. His research aims to understand the pathophysiology of brain and kidney injury arising from severe infections (sepsis), cardiac surgery requiring the heart-lung machine (cardiopulmonary bypass) and heart disease (heart failure). Armed with this knowledge, he hopes to develop novel diagnostics and therapeutics to improve patient-centred health outcomes.

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Professor Lankadeva has over 70 publications in high-impact medical journals including Circulation, Anaesthesia, British Journal of Anaesthesia; Anaesthesia and Analgesia; American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine; Intensive Care Medicine; Critical Care Medicine; Kidney International. The quality and clinical relevance of his work has been acknowledged by the award of more than $23 million of funding. His discoveries have translated to 10 clinical trials across Australia, Europe, US and Asia.

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He is an inventor on 3 patents and has received over 25 prestigious career awards from the Australian Institute of Policy and Science, Heart Foundation of Australia, Microcirculation Society, Hypertension Australia, Australian and New Zealand Microcirculation Society, World Congress for Microcirculation, Harold Mitchell Foundation, CASS Foundation and Jack Brockhoff Foundation. In addition, Professor Lankadeva currently holds appointments as the Head of Systems Neuroscience Theme at the Florey, Co-chair of Florey’s Mentoring Committee, and Principal Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Critical Care, Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne and Principal Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Anaesthesia, Austin Hospital.

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As a Sri Lankan immigrant, Professor Lankadeva is passionate about engaging in consumer outreach activities for non-English speaking Sri Lankans (SBS Sinhala: [2022]) and for inspiring Sri Lankan high school students to pursue careers in medical research in Australia [2021-2023].