Rate My Professor Eugenie Lumbers

Professor Eugenie Lumbers is an Honorary Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy (Pharmacy and Experimental Pharmacology) at the University of Newcastle. She earned her MBBS in 1965 and MD in 1970 from the University of Adelaide, and a DSc in 1986 from the University of New South Wales. Her career began at the University of Adelaide as a Postgraduate Medical Scholar and NHMRC Senior Research Officer. In 1972-1973, she received the C.J. Martin Travelling Fellowship—the first awarded to a woman—at the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research, Oxford University. Joining UNSW in 1974 as Senior Lecturer, she progressed to Associate Professor (1980-1988), Professor and Personal Chair in Physiology (1988-1999), Head of School of Physiology and Pharmacology for nine years, and UNSW's first female Scientia Professor in 1998. She held conjoint appointments at UNSW (2003-2013) and University of Queensland (2009-2011), and since 2013, her position at Newcastle.

Professor Lumbers has an international profile for discoveries in fetal and maternal cardiovascular and renal physiology, especially the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) in pregnancy, fetal development, preeclampsia, preterm birth, and fetal programming of adult hypertension and kidney disease. With Brian Morris, she discovered prorenin and its activation. Her research covers circulating, intrarenal, and intrauterine RAS; prorenin receptor in placentogenesis and endometrial cancer; placental responses to hypoxia, miRNAs, oxygen, and fetal sex; and fetal heart maturation. She has 270 publications (h-index 32), including 'miR-155 suppresses angiotensin II type 1 receptor synthesis during placental morphogenesis' (2026), 'The soluble (pro)renin receptor promotes a preeclampsia-like phenotype both in vitro and in vivo' (2024), 'Causes and Consequences of the Dysregulated Maternal Renin-Angiotensin System in Preeclampsia' (2019), and 'The Physiological Roles of the Renin-Angiotensin Aldosterone System and Vasopressin in Human Pregnancy' (2020). Awards include Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (2002), Life Member Australian Physiological Society (2002), Centenary Medal (2002), Fellow Royal Society of New South Wales (2001), and Member of the Order of Australia (2012). She referees for journals like Circulation Research, Journal of Physiology, and Placenta.