Isuru Jayasinghe

Biography

I completed my basic qualifications (BSc Hons with a major in Cardiovascular Sciences and PhD in Physiology) in the University of Auckland, New Zealand. My postdoctoral trainings were in the Department of Physiology of the University of Auckland (2010-2011), School of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Queensland, Australia (2011-2013) and the College of Physics of the University of Exeter, UK (2013-2015).

Research Interest

My research focuses on the calcium signalling that is at the heart of the contractile function of the muscle cells of the heart. It is primarily the structural organisation of the internal structure within each cell that guarantees the forceful and synchronous contraction of each cell from beat to beat. In particular, I am interested in the signalling within and around ‘dyads’ where invaginations of the surface membrane (t-tubules) meet the internal calcium store (sarcoplasmic reticulum) to form what is essentially an ‘intracellular synapse’. Within this synapse, is the giant calcium-release channels: the ~2 MDa ryanodine receptors (RyR), organised into near-crystalline arrays. One of the key areas of interested in my lab is how the structure, organisation and post-translational modifications of proteins associated with cardiac muscle dyads determine the nature of the local calcium signal and ultimately the contractile performance of the cell. In a range of heart pathologies, this dyad structure is disrupted; t-tubules are lost or remodelled as a result of the loss or breakdown of proteins that tether these membranes together. In ongoing work, I am probing the mechanisms that are in place to maintain these structures and how they may be altered in pathology as well as non-pathological remodelling.