Alexander Pinto group
Cardiac Cellular Systems
Based at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute (Melbourne), we seek to understand how the network of cells that form the heart contributes to the development of heart failure. We also study how other organs and factors in the blood regulate this network, as well as focusing on understanding how hypertension, obesity and diabetes alter the heart, and whether these changes are reversible. To achieve our research goals, the laboratory uses cutting-edge computational biology, single-cell omics, 3D imaging, and mouse genetic technologies.
Research areas
We were the first to use single-cell transcriptomics to catalogue the entire cardiac cellular landscape – both myocytes and non-myocytes – and also examine the impact of hypertension on cardiac cells. Key findings include identification of two previously undescribed cell populations driving fibrosis, and sex differences in key cellular and genetic circuits driving fibrosis.
We have also performed the first study using single-cell transcriptomics on cardiac non-myocytes from the adult mouse heart. The work revealed the heart hosts a diverse and interdependent network of cells and revealed the extent to which biological sex regulates cellular gene expression.
We have also found that the heart hosts a diverse and abundant network of non-myocytes that significantly outnumber cardiomyocytes – the primary contractile cell type of the heart. Previous to our work, the cellular composition of the heart was not known, and our findings have challenged the prevailing view that fibroblasts were the most abundant cardiac cell type.
Meet the team
Group leader:
- Associate Professor Alex Pinto
Postdoctoral researchers:
- Dr Patrick Lelliott
- Dr Rebecca Harper
PhD researchers:
- Crisdion Krstevski
- Gabriella Farrugia
Publications
See a full list of publications on: