Lisa Heather: Cardiac Sciences/Metabolism & Endocrinology – 'Targeting Metabolism to Protect the Heart in Diabetes'

Diabetes affects 10% of the adult population worldwide, and cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in people with diabetes. However, we currently don’t understand why diabetes is so detrimental for the heart, and have limited treatment options to treat the heart in diabetes. We need to understand the cellular mechanisms by which diabetes affects cardiomyocyte function, as this will allow us to identify novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of this disease. Type 2 diabetes is primarily a metabolic disease, characterised by increased blood glucose and fatty acids. Cardiac metabolism changes early on in the development of diabetes, and this has been shown to contribute to the development of diabetic heart disease. However, we currently don’t fully understand the mechanisms that link metabolic dysfunction to cellular dysfunction in the heart, and studies are needed to unpick the signalling pathways directly regulated by abnormal metabolism. In addition, the metabolic origin of the diabetes complications makes metabolic therapy an attractive target to improve function in the diabetic heart. Work in the Heather group focuses on understanding the role of metabolism in the development of cardiovascular disease in diabetes, and investigating the potential for reversing this therapeutically. In this project the candidate will use pre-clinical and cell models of type 2 diabetes, along with metabolic tracers, mitochondrial respirometry, molecular biology and bioinformatics techniques to investigate the critical role for metabolism in diabetes.