Professor Wendy Hoy is the Director of the Centre for Chronic Disease based at the University of Queensland. She is recognised nationally and internationally for her multidisciplinary research on kidney and related chronic disease, particularly in high risk populations. She is an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA).
Wendy promotes interpretation of health profiles in high risk populations in multi-determinant disease models. She showed that screening and treatment in remote Australian Aboriginal populations reduces dialysis needs, deaths and costs. That work has helped transform Australian Aboriginal health services and underpins many intervention programs globally. She has described the transformation of mortality in the remote Aboriginal setting over the last 50 years, and its links to current health profiles and population size and structure. Her current work includes investigations of low birthweight and prematurity as determinants of adult health, addresses genetic determinants of kidney disease in Aborigines and APOL1-risk factor-associated disease in African-Americans. She consults with Central American agencies and with Sri Lanka in CKDu (chronic disease of unknown etiology). She and her colleagues have conducted the only nationwide study of kidney biopsies in Australia, defining the high rates of enlargement and scarring of kidney filters. They have also defined, through the largest series of kidney autopsies in the world, encompassing five ethnic groups in three continents, the structural features marking heightened susceptibility to kidney disease and high blood pressure, most notably a relative deficiency of, and enlargement of, nephrons, the structural units of the kidney.
Collaborations are critical to Wendy’s work, and span 19 research areas in 16 countries and are held with at least 20 institutions. In Australia they have been formed with Indigenous health services, state/territory and federal health agencies, research institutions, private enterprise and NGOs.
Wendy also leads the CKD.QLD Collaborative and the NHMRC CKD Centre for Research Excellence, and advises on studies of CKD globally. She was recently (May 2016) elected to the International Society of Nephrology iNET-CKD core group; an international collaborative examining patterns of CKD around the globe and supporting CKD research endeavours.