Cardiovascular disease and stroke
About
Cardiovascular disease comprises a class of diseases involving the heart and/or blood vessels, often leading to heart attack, stroke and kidney disease.
Our research covers the spectrum of cardiovascular biology and diseases, encapsulating basic mechanistic research, experimental animal models, clinical and allied health research and epidemiological studies.
Our laboratories cover all major technologies of modern biomedical sciences with unique strengths in drug discovery enabling translation of our findings into new diagnostics, preventions and treatments for cardiovascular disease.
More specifically, the scope of our cross-disciplinary research includes unravelling the role of inflammation and activation of the immune system in the pathogenesis of hypertension and chronic kidney disease, and the inflammatory mechanisms occurring in the brain after a stroke.
We study the regulation of the coronary and cerebral circulations and investigate mechanisms that promote tissue survival after injury or transplantation, and examine developmental changes in behavior of the contractile muscle of the heart under normal and diseased conditions.
We use functional components of diet and investigate the role of foetal programming in prevention and reversal of cardiovascular disease, including obesity and metabolic syndrome.
Research groups
Cardiovascular physiology
Group leader: Dr. Colleen Thomas
We develop novel therapies (drugs and other strategies) for cardiovascular disease.
Gene-environment interactions
Group leaders: Dr. Mark Jois and Dr. Jency Thomas
Understanding the role gene-environment interactions in the development of diseases relevant to public health.
Neurophysiology
Group leader: Dr. Joon (Kyungjoon) Lim
Our research centres on cardiovascular neuroscience and fills a niche between the clinic and basic research.
Skeletal and cardiac muscle research group
Group leader: Dr. Giuseppe Posterino
Understanding the fundamental basis of muscle contraction across a wide array of muscle types (skeletal, cardiac and smooth).
Vascular biology and immunopharmacology
Group leaders: Professor Chris Sobey and Professor Grant Drummond
Understanding the causes of stroke, hypertension and chronic kidney disease with a view to identifying new biomarkers, drug targets and therapies.
Cardiac cellular systems
Group leader: Dr. Alexander Pinto
Mapping the cardiac cellular ecosystem to identify and target novel drivers of cardiac disease.
Experimental Stroke and Inflammation Research Group
Group leader: Professor Thiruma V. Arumugam (Garrie)
Our long-term goals are to identify the molecular and cellular mechanisms that are involved in the injury process of ischaemic stroke and vascular dementia (VaD) and find new therapeutic targets for these diseases. Toward this end we have discovered many novel targets and employed a number of pharmacological agents.