Enzo Porrello

Biography

Dr Enzo Porrello heads the Cardiac Regeneration Laboratory at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, and is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of Melbourne. After completing his PhD in Physiology at The University of Melbourne, Dr Porrello was awarded an NHMRC/NHF C.J. Martin Fellowship to undertake postdoctoral training in Prof Eric Olson's laboratory at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, USA. Upon returning to Australia in 2012, Dr Porrello established the Cardiac Regeneration Laboratory at The University of Queensland, which he co-headed together with Dr James Hudson from 2013-2017. Dr Porrello maintains strong links to The University of Queensland where he holds an honorary appointment as an Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences. Dr Porrello has made a number of contributions to field of cardiac developmental and regenerative biology over the past 10 years. His discovery of a previously unappreciated developmental window for cardiac regeneration in the neonatal period has opened up an entirely new field of research, which has broad implications for the development of cardiac regenerative therapies for congenital and acquired forms of heart disease. His laboratory has contributed to an enhanced understanding of the transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms governing cardiomyocyte maturation in the neonata period, which remains a major area of research focus in his group. Ongoing work harnesses a range of technologies including animal models and human cardiac organoids derived from patient stem cells for disease modeling and drug development.

Research Interest

Physiology and Biomedical Sciences