Lorna's PhD focused on the role of calcium calmodulin dependent protein kinase (CaMKIIδ) in type 2 diabetic heart dysfunction. CaMKIIδ activation has been shown to be up-regulated in diabetes and cause a number of pathological consequences. In this project, Lorna identified CaMKIIδ activation as a novel mediator of cardiac contractility in the type 2 diabetic heart, and that inhibition of CaMKIIδ can improve cardiac function. 
Therefore the work in this thesis has provided the first novel evidence of the therapeutic potential of CaMKIIδ inhibition in the type 2 diabetic heart.
Lorna was supervised by Drs Jeff Erickson & Regis Lamberts, and Associate Professor Fiona McDonald.
We wish Lorna all the best in her new Postdoctoral Research Fellow position which she is starting soon at the University of Auckland!