Dr. Anna Krstic is currently a year 3 medical student at the University of Auckland and part-time research assistant for the Heart Mechanics Group at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI), with clinical collaborations at Auckland City Hospital. Dr. Krstic completed her PhD in the Muscle Cell Function Laboratory in the Department of Physiology. Her research investigated changes in calcium handling in hypertrophic heart disease. Calcium is a key regulator of contraction, and an impairment in calcium handling is a common pathology associated with ventricular dysfunction in heart disease. Dr. Krstic's research has investigated the structural changes (distribution and abundance of calcium handling proteins) and functional alterations (calcium fluxes) that occur at the cellular and subcellular level during the early stages of hypertrophy.