Delbridge & Weeks laboratory: Cardiac Phenomics & Signalling
Research Overview
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The Cardiac Phenomics & Signalling Laboratory research is about understanding how the heart response to stress can be managed to minimize the damaging impacts of a variety of disease conditions. We investigate responses of the working 'pumping' heart, of specialized muscle tissues and cells from different regions of the heart and of molecular signaling processes. As our name suggests, we look at how the cardiac 'genome' (the genetically defined heart) is translated in different stressor situations to create the 'phenome' (the structurally and functionally defined heart).
Our pre-clinical work focuses on cardiac pathology arising from Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, adrenergic stress states, cardiotoxic cancer therapies, and on the factors that determine how female and male hearts respond differently to stress and disease challenges. These areas of heart health are of critical significance in shaping the demographics of cardiovascular disease. We use experimental models to mimic human disease conditions, and we look for links between the performance of single muscle cells and the functioning heart. Our goals are to inform the development of new treatments for heart failure and to understand how for women and men, cardiac 'difference' may be managed with optimized therapeutic tools.
Staff
Professor Lea M Delbridge, Head of Laboratory
Dr Kate Weeks, Co-Lead of Laboratory
Professor Lea M Delbridge
Lab Head
Professor Lea Delbridge was awarded her PhD in Physiology from the University of Melbourne. She had training positions at Dalhousie University (Halifax, Canada) and Loyola University (Chicago, USA). At Loyola, she was appointed an International Fellow of the American Heart Association working with Prof Don Bers. She returned to Melbourne as a Fellow of the National Heart Foundation of Australia, prior to taking up an academic position within the Department of Physiology. She was appointed Professor in 2011. From 2007 to 2013, she was the President of the Australasian Section Council of the International Society of Heart Research (ISHR), and is an elected World Council ISHR Member (2010-2016). She has also served as Council Member for the Australian Physiological Society.
Dr Claire L Curl, Research Fellow
Dr Claire L Curl
Research Fellow
Claire completed her PhD at Monash University – her work in demonstrating direct sex steroid effects on cardiomyocytes is seminal. She leads our longitudinal studies on failure transition, investigating how early perinatal influences culminate in structural and functional cardiac demise using integrated echo imaging and single cell functional imaging approaches.
Dr AJA (Hanneke) Raaijmakers, Research Associate
Dr AJA (Hanneke) Raaijmakers
Research Fellow
Hanneke is pursuing the important question of how Ca-dependent and Ca-independent factors influence diastolic dysfunction in the cardiomyocyte. Her work intact heart and intact myocytes – functional, mechanical and molecular studies at cell and tissue levels. The implementation of single cell mechano-measurements is an exciting aspect of her work..
Students
Adam Chau, PhD student
Sanela Dozic, PhD student
Sarah Hayes, PhD student (LaTrobe)