Yugeesh Lankadeva, Ph.D., is a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Research Fellow in the Pre-clinical Critical Care Unit at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. His research focuses on the mechanisms underlying cardiovascular failure, acute kidney injury and immunosuppression in sepsis and the development of acute kidney injury following cardiac surgery on cardiopulmonary bypass. Dr. Lankadeva is particularly interested in the neural and hormonal control of the circulation, from reactivity of isolated blood vessels to integrated physiological studies in the conscious whole animal. He has demonstrated that selective renal hypoxia occurs very early in sepsis and that this may contribute to the development of kidney injury. In addition, his demonstration that urinary PO2 changes in parallel with renal medullary PO2, suggests that this may be used as a novel biomarker for early detection of the development of kidney injury and to continuously estimate renal medullary tissue PO2 during administration of therapies used in intensive care units. His goal is to understand the pathological changes that occur during sepsis and during cardiac surgery on cardiopulmonary bypass and, armed with this knowledge, to develop improved therapies to reduce the development of acute kidney injury and cardiovascular failure.