Prof John French has been Director of Cardiovascular Research since 2004, and is the director of the Coronary Care Unit in the Cardiology Department at Liverpool Hospital (HOD 2007-11). Prof French is a conjoint Professor at UNSW and WSU. After basic physician training, he undertook a PhD at the University of Adelaide, further cardiology training at Green Lane Hospital New Zealand and a Welcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship at University College London, UK. Prior to arriving in Sydney, Prof French was appointed to Green Lane Hospital and the University of Auckland from 1992-2003. He has been an investigator and co-investigator in numerous randomised controlled trials and is currently on the steering committees of the STREAM-2 and FREEDOM follow-on trials, and is national leader for both; he is also Australian lead for the WNICR collaborative. Prof French has served on the clinical endpoints committees of several major trials. Prof French reviews for many journals, and since 2005 has served on the editorial board of the American Heart Journal.

Prof French has recently co-authored the NHF-CSANZ (Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand) 2016 ACS guidelines (lead writer for the STEMI section). He was the medical co-chair of the ACI cardiac network of NSW [2012-5], and chair of the clinical trials council of CSANZ [2011-4], and served on the UNSW HREC 2013-16. He has co-authored ~220 peer-reviewed. Prof French’s current major research interests include the acute coronary syndromes especially ST elevation MI, cardiac biomarkers especially high sensitivity troponins, and diabetes and coronary heart disease. Prof French is CIB on the NHMRC-funded Me-2 trial randomising patients with type-2 myocardial infarction to coronary angiography or usual care.