Varun Malik

I am a cardiologist and electrophysiologist based in Adelaide, Australia. I am a clinician-scientist at Adelaide University where I am the Principal Investigator for my laboratory: Cardiac arrhythmia & aUtonomic neurosciences REsearch Laboratory. My goals are to delineate the role that the autonomic nervous system plays as both a trigger and substrate of cardiac arrhythmias, to develop novel therapeutic strategies that harness the autonomic neural control of the heart. I received my medical degree from The University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia. I obtained Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Physicians in adult cardiology and proceeded to complete a Fellowship in cardiac electrophysiology and pacing at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, Australia. Together with this, I obtained his PhD from the University of Adelaide, under the mentorship of Professor Prashanthan Sanders. My scientific work has been awarded the Heart Rhythm Society’s Young Investigator Award (Clinical Research) and JACC Clinical Electrophysiology best author award for my paper entitled “Autonomic Afferent Dysregulation in Atrial Fibrillation” in 2021. I completed an advanced fellowship in cardiac electrophysiology and served as visiting research faculty at UCLA (2023-2024) with Professor Kalyanam Shivkumar at the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center and the Neurocardiology Program of excellence. Here, I conducted the largest neuroimaging study, combined with autonomic reflex testing in postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), published in Heart Rhythm.

My clinical interests include catheter ablation of ventricular arrhythmias and autonomic neuromodulation, atrial fibrillation, management of dysautonomias (especially postural tachycardia syndrome and vasovagal syncope) and device implantation. My primary research has focussed on the pathophysiology and clinical sequelae of atrial fibrillation, specifically due to autonomic dysregulation of afferent or interoceptive nerve inputs. This work has been included in the latest international consensus guidelines statement on the pathophysiology and management of atrial fibrillation (2023 ACC/AHA/ACCP/HRS Guideline for the Diagnosis and Management of Atrial Fibrillation).

I am passionate about scientific progress through appropriate peer review and serve as editorial board member for Heart Rhythm 02. I have also been scholar-in-residence for JACC: clinical electrophysiology.