{"id":7282,"date":"2024-05-09T15:23:59","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T05:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/uncategorized\/childhood-dream-realised-2"},"modified":"2024-05-09T15:48:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T05:48:08","slug":"childhood-dream-realised-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/news\/childhood-dream-realised-2","title":{"rendered":"A childhood dream realised for Melanie"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 fusion-flex-container nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-flex-start fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:89.44rem;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:100%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:1.92%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:1.92%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\"><h1>A childhood dream realised for Melanie<\/h1>\n<div id=\"attachment_7280\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7280\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7280 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/05\/newsroom-melanie-spratt-b.png\" alt=\"Dr Melanie Spratt at The Prince Charles Hospital \" width=\"400\" height=\"600\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/05\/newsroom-melanie-spratt-b-100x150.png 100w, https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/05\/newsroom-melanie-spratt-b-200x300.png 200w, https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/05\/newsroom-melanie-spratt-b.png 400w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 400px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 400\/600;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7280\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Melanie dedicates her research to heart disease<\/p><\/div>\n<h4>Dr Melanie Spratt has a special connection to The Prince Charles Hospital. After being born with congenital heart condition pulmonary valve stenosis, Melanie has been cared for by the TPCH cardiac team her entire life. Now she\u2019s working with them researching heart disease.<\/h4>\n<p>Pulmonary valve stenosis is a thickening of a heart valve that causes a valve to not open or close properly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThankfully, I was found to have a mild case, but I still needed to be monitored closely and had regular check-ups throughout my life,\u201d Melanie said.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a cardiac scientist and research fellow at The Prince Charles Hospital as a clinical cardiac scientist and research fellow, Melanie dedicates her time to finding new drug treatments to save the lives of those with heart failure.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after completing her PhD, Melanie received a New Investigator Grant from The Common Good to pursue her research which involves collecting tissue samples to test different drugs to see if they can treat heart arrhythmias.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing that heart conditions affect so many Australians made the young researcher want to pay it forward to see what he could do to help fight heart disease.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe hope is to increase the rate of screening of new medicine used in heart failure to rapidly progress from bench to bedside,\u201d Melanie said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrowing up with a heart condition myself has definitely sparked an interest in learning about hearts and helping people that way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am so grateful for the role that medical research can play in making lives better.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Melanie Spratt has grown from baby ICU patient to heart researcher. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":7281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7282"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7285,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7282\/revisions\/7285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}