John Atherton

John Atherton (MBBS, PhD, FRACP, FCSANZ, FESC, FHFA) is a Pre-eminent Staff Specialist and Director of Cardiology at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) and Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland. Professor Atherton was awarded the title of Heart Failure Association Ambassador by the European Society of Cardiology (2023-2024). He chaired the 2018 National Heart Foundation of Australia/ Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ) Heart Failure Guidelines, sits on the Australian Therapeutic Guidelines Cardiovascular Expert Group (last updated 2023) and co-authored the first universal definition of heart failure. Professor Atherton is Data Custodian for the Queensland Cardiac Outcomes Registry (QCOR)- Heart Failure and sits as a Director on the National Cardiac Registry Board (representing CSANZ). His clinical and research interests include investigating novel methods to detect pre-symptomatic heart disease, heart failure disease management, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and cardiac genetics. He co-developed the RBWH cardiac genetic clinic in collaboration with Genetic Health Queensland, which takes state-wide referrals.