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Research groups

Michael Dodd

DPhil, MBiochem, MRSB, FHEA


Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Research Fellow

I am a Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Researcher Fellow in Dr Lisa Heather's group in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Oxford. I originally studied Biochemistry at Bath University, before working at Powdermed vaccines in Oxford. After that I came to the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine and the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics to study for my DPhil.

My research involves examining the metabolism of the failing and diseased heart. The healthy heart derives 60-80% of its energy from the burning of fat, the rest from carbohydrates and ketones. During heart disease this carefully balanced use of fuel can become breakdown.

We are using a host of techniques to understand changes in heart structure, function and metabolism during heart disease. One technique is hyperpolarized magnetic resonance spectroscopy to understand the change in metabolism in these diseased states (done in collaboration with Prof Tyler's group) and example of this can be seen in Figure 1. The focus of my fellowship involves understanding how cardiac metabolism is altered during both diabetes and hypoxia, using cardiac cells.

Mitochondria in HL-1 cardiomyocytes