Lab Spotlight: Hypertension Research Laboratory

Lab Spotlight: Hypertension Research Laboratory

“Decoding the Gut–Heart Connection”

Based at Monash University’s Victorian Heart Institute, the Hypertension Research Laboratory is dedicated to improving cardiovascular health by building exceptional researchers. The lab is led by Prof Francine Marques, supported by co-deputy lab heads Dr Joanne O’Donnell, Dr Matthew Snelson and Lab Manager Dr Simona Antonacci, and includes a multidisciplinary team of post-doctoral researchers, PhD and honours students, and support staff. The team comprises Dr Rikeish R Muralitharan, Dr Chudan Xu, Dr Liz Vecchio, Dr Liang Xie, Dr Tenghao Zheng, Dr Leticia Camargo Tavares, Dr Smriti Shrestha, Wendy Qin, Evany Dinakis, Phoebe Cheong, Chaoran Yang, Malindi Welathanthree Gurunnanselage, Zaahida Abdul Jalil, Charlotte Barker, Naomi Drego, Esha Vashisht, and Helen Nguyen.

What is your team's vision?

Our vision is to improve cardiovascular health by building exceptional researchers.

Tell us about your lab's research or initiatives focused on preventing, detecting, and managing high blood pressure and its complications.

Our lab is internationally recognised for pioneering how dietary fibre, acting via the gut microbiome, regulates blood pressure through a multidisciplinary approach integrating microbiome, nutrition, molecular biology, genetics, and cardiovascular physiology across experimental models and humans. Our research has demonstrated that individuals with high blood pressure often exhibit a disrupted gut microbiome, characterised by impaired production of beneficial microbial metabolites, such as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), or lower levels of receptors that sense SCFAs (e.g. GPR41/43), which play a critical role in regulating blood pressure. We aim to uncover novel pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies to prevent and manage hypertension by targeting the gut-heart axis.

What is your team currently working on?

We are currently investigating:

  • The role of the immune system in how the gut microbiome lowers blood pressure (Dr Joanne O’Donnell)
  • Whether people with hypertension have a ‘leaky gut’ and how to fix it (Dr Matthew Snelson)
  • Central mechanisms (‘the gut-brain axis’) regulated by the gut microbiome that control blood pressure (www.marqueslab.com/trials, Dr Rikeish R Muralitharan, Malindi Welathanthree Gurunnanselage)
  • Personalised responses to dietary fibre and blood pressure (Phoebe Cheong, Chaoran Yang)
  • How intestinal pH controls blood pressure (Evany Dinakis)
  • Identification of new microbial metabolites produced by a lack of dietary fibre and their contribution to blood pressure (Dr Chudan Xu)
  • Development of novel drugs that copy the effect of SCFAs in the body (Dr Liz Vecchio)
  • The impact of maternal dietary fibre (Dr Chudan Xu) on mothers and offspring

And some more!

 

What is your team planning on working on next?

We hope to be running more clinical trials with novel products we are designing as well as investigating interactions between blood pressure-lowering drugs and the gut microbiome.

Has your lab received any awards, grants, or publications for your work related to Hypertension?

We are lucky to have had incredible recognition for the work we are doing – for example, in the last HA ASM, Evany Dinakis won the Student Oral Award, and Dr Joanne O’Donnell was the recipient of the Judith Whitworth Award for the highest scoring abstract whose first author is a woman. Our research has been recognised by over 130 awards or shortlisted as finalists, including receiving the American Heart Association Hypertension Council Goldblatt Award and the Australian Academy of Science Gottschalk Medal.

Has your lab achieved any results from your work related to Hypertension?

We achieved a rare feat for discovery researchers, going from animal findings published in 2017 (Marques et al., 2017 Circulation) to a randomised clinical trial in 2023 (Jama… Marques, 2023 Nature Cardiovascular Research), showing that the gut microbial metabolites SCFAs indeed lower blood pressure to a level that was equivalent to taking an ACE inhibitor or calcium channel blocker. This trial received the Australian Society for Medical Research Peter Doherty Leading Light Award and was twice a finalist for the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance Translation Award. We have now received funding from the Australian Stroke and Heart Research Accelerator to develop a product for commercialisation.

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44161-022-00197-4

Where can we find out more about your work with Hypertension?

You can read more about our team on our website: www.marqueslab.com

Some of our recent papers include: