Shaun Sandow

Biography

Associate Professor Shaun Sandow obtained his PhD in Neuroscience, at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University and conducted subsequent research studies at the University of Bath, UK as a British Heart Foundation funded Research Fellow. Prior to appointment at the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC), he was a Senior Research Fellow in Physiology in the School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales (2005-2013), where he chaired the School Research and Postdoctoral mentoring committees. In 2014, he moved to the UniSC as a University Research Fellow, while continuing to jointly run the Microvascular Research group at UNSW (to 2022) with Dr Tim Murphy.

Shaun is currently an Associate Professor in Cardiovascular Physiology at UniSC and an issues editor for Frontiers in Physiology. Shaun is also a grant reviewer for the National Health and Medical Research and the Australian Research Councils, the Diabetes Australia Research Trust, Israel Science Foundation, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, the Health Research Council of NZ, the National Heart Foundation, Neurological Foundation of NZ and the Wellcome Trust (UK). Shaun has peer reviewed manuscripts for 68 Journals on >220 occasions, including from the American Heart Association (AHA), and the American Physiological, Pharmacological, Physiological, British Pharmacological, Biochemical and European Cardiology (ECS) Societies journal series. These include Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, Circulation Research, Hypertension, Stroke; the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics; the British Journal of Pharmacology; the American Journal of Physiology (Heart, Cell, Renal and Endocrinology), and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. In addition, Shaun has been on invited speaker and chair at 11 and 9 international and 13 and 8 domestic conferences, respectively.

Shaun is also a research leader with the VasoActive Cardiovascular Rehabilitation and Research Program, UniSC.

Research

Research area. My broad area of research expertise is in vascular biology, with peer-reviewed articles and their metrics as the main measure of output and esteem, as performance evidence; citation of book chapter, patent, government paper and other publications also having relevance. Invited presentation at international and domestic conferences, and related organization thereof is also a relative measure of performance, as are elected Society admin roles. Success of collaborative work with international and domestic colleagues (via joint papers, presentations and holding peer-reviewed funding), and overall grant funding and related supervision of research students and staff are further indicators of esteem; as are invited peer review and editorial duties and funding agency assessment.

Publication metrics. I have > 80 refereed career journal articles, with 17 and 19 as first and last author, respectively; 4 chapters. 3 letters; and 2 editorials; >200 refereed and conference abstracts; and 5 peer-reviewed articles funded/part-funded from grants on which I was lead and not an author (as mentorship). My journal articles have been cited >4,180 and 5,355 times (ISI and Google scholar, respectively), with a H-index of 38 and 43, respectively. My career FWCI (1996-2022) is 1.55.

Over 90% of my publications are in Q1 journals in the physiology, pharmacology, neuroscience or gastrointestinal disciplines. I have published 11 papers in these 4 AHA and ESC journals, with 5 as first or senior author, and total ISI (2021) AHA and ESC paper citations >1000. In 2015 I co-authored papers in Nature Comms and Science Trans Med (2021 ISI IFs of 17.7 and 19.3, respectively); as high impact general Journals.

Funding.

2016-2017. Diabetes Australia Research Trust. $49,950; CoI, with Dr Tim Murphy (UNSW).

2021-2022. Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital Foundation grant. $38,000. CIC with CIA Prof Paul Colditz CIB Yvonne Eiby (lead), CID Barbara Lingwood (UQ) and AI Prof Ian Wright (JCU). Identifying priority targets for effective blood volume management in preterm infants.

2020-2023. NHMRC Ideas Grant (GNT1187505). CIs Colditz, Eiby and Lingwood (UQ); SS role as AI only. Loss of blood volume at the capillary level contributes to poor outcomes for preterm infants ($1,377,948).

Honours and HDR research projects

1. Identifying new targets to control and correct blood flow in ischemic stroke; with Tim Murphy and Nicole Jones, UNSW, and Vladimir Matchkov, Aarhus University, Denmark.

2. Identifying mechanisms of fluid balance in newborn, using a pig model; with Vicki Hinkley, UniSC and Yvonne Eiby, University of Queensland.

3. Identifying targets to correct abnormal blood flow in pregnancy (with Tim Murphy, University of New South Wales; and Leo Leader, Royal Hospital for Women, Sydney).

4. Omega-3 fatty acid supplementation for treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm — login required (with Fraser Russell, UniSC).

Teaching areas

• Cardiovascular Physiology

Professional memberships

• Australian and New Zealand Microcirculation Society (2001-present).
• Australian Physiological Society (1995-present).
• Australian Vascular Biology Society (2012-present).
• Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand (2019-present).
• The Brain Foundation (Australia; 2015-).

Media Commentary

Associate Professor Sandow’s specialist interests include vascular biology with a focus on mechanisms that control blood flow in health and disease; also having expert knowledge and specialist publications in areas of neuroscience and gastrointestinal physiology. Over the last ~10 years Shaun’s focus has been in determining the mechanisms of blood flow in preeclampsia and ischemic stroke; determining how blood flow is changed in these diseases and how it can be targeted for control and correction. Shaun’s main research methods involve focus on determining the link between anatomy and function, being expert in the development of techniques for the high-resolution localization of signalling proteins in arteries in health and disease, using electron and confocal microscopy; and relating those data with function from isolated small artery segments and drug interventions. Shaun has published >80 peer-reviewed articles, including on the leading cardiovascular journal series of the American Heart Association, the European Cardiology and the American Physiological Societies.