Dr Nina Eikelis

Biography

Dr Eikelis has over 15 years experience in medical research. During her PhD studies and throughout her post-doctoral research period she obtained training in experimental models (high fat-diet rabbit and rodent models of schizophrenia), clinical physiology and molecular biology.

Dr Eikelis’s research focus over recent years has developed further in molecular biology and her interests fall in the area of sympathetic activation in health and disease, and in particular what role sympathetic nervous system activation plays in obesity and hypertension. Both hypertension and obesity are recognised as major global health problems in both Western and developing countries.

Dr Eikelis’s current projects include examining the role of microRNAs in the development and treatment of conditions associated with dysfunction in the noradrenaline transporter (NET) gene, which functions to remove released noradrenaline from the synapse. Her team’s recent work revealed that a single nucleotide polymorphism in NET 3’UTR region creates a novel binding site for a microRNA miR-19a-3p that leads to a reduction of NET function and may increase the risk of cardiovascular, psychiatric and stress-related diseases. Dr Eikelis continues to focus on investigations of the effect of renal denervation on sympathetic nervous activity, as well as inflammatory markers and metabolic profile with the aim at indentifying biomarkers that are predictive of treatment response.