Emily Jane King

Biography

Emily obtained a BSc Advanced (Honours) in Microbiology from the University of Sydney, receiving The Greg Ralston Award to present her work at the Annual Lorne Proteomics Symposium. After graduating, she gained experience in the field of pharmaceutical sales and achieved Certification of Italian as a Foreign Language from the University of Siena before returning to the lab as a Research Assistant. As part of the Translational Research Group at the Heart Research Institute, she explored novel mechanisms of the diabetes drug fenofibrate to better understand its protective effects and to develop more specific treatments to combat devastating lower limb amputations commonly experienced by type 2 diabetic patients. Through this, she developed an interest in muscle, mitochondria and type 2 diabetes, receiving an Australian Postgraduate Award and Bright Sparks Top-Up Scholarship to commence a PhD at the Baker Institute. Her current project investigates whether insulin resistance develops as a result of mitochondrial dysfunction (or energetic defects) in muscle and whether related conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, can be treated with novel, muscle-specific therapies.

Research Interest

Lipid Metabolism and Cardiometabolic Disease