Veterinary preclinical sciences research

Ioannis studies the mechanisms that regulate the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt), an evolutionarily conserved stress response that he has previously shown to preserve mitochondrial homeostasis and protect the failing heart. Considering how critical the processes involved in mitochondrial protein homeostasis are for cardiac function, identifying nuanced approaches to enhance the UPRmt in the overloaded heart has potential impact in developing therapeutic agents against heart failure, as well as other conditions that affect human health.

Giovanna has a world class reputation in the dissection of signalling pathways driving the homeostasis of the articular cartilage in physiology and disease. Her overarching goal is to discover novel pharmacological targets to treat osteoarthritis (OA), affecting both humans and animals in line with the schools One-Health mission. Her research focusses on two main areas: molecular signalling driving OA pathogenesis and development of artificial models to study articular cartilage physiology. Her research is interdisciplinary and fosters national and international collaborations. Her vision is to build up on her discoveries and to engage with industrial partners to translate her findings into clinical fruition.

Rebecca’s work investigates the interactions of cell membrane proteins, particularly ion channels, with their underlying tissue/substrate.  She has extensive expertise in the characterisation of ion channel proteins, and how modulation of these affects cell function in health and disease.  Her areas of specialty are in cartilage physiology, the ion channels expressed within chondrocytes (the resident cell type of cartilage) and how these channels are altered in disease states. She has a developing research area in tissue engineering and is investigating several novel substrates for their suitability as in vitro cellular scaffolds.

Kamalan is a clinician scientist by training and leads an interdisciplinary team of medics, veterinarians, computational biologist and basic scientist that focus on the mechanistic elucidation of multiple cardiovascular conditions using time-tested gold standard techniques and state-of-the-art approaches. Specifically, his research interest includes integrative physiology, novel therapeutic agent & biomarker discoveries, and computing in cardiology. His present work concerns the use integrative physiology techniques to elucidate mechanism of cardiac arrhythmia, developing cardiovascular risk stratification strategies for clinical practice through biomarker development and computational approaches. His work seeks to clarify the cross-cutting mechanistic influence of ageing and individual genetic makeups such as ethnicity, gender, and breed (for animals) in disease development and detection.