In Canada, over 11 million individuals live with diabetes or pre-diabetes, with cardiovascular disease being its leading cause of death. Although atherosclerotic vascular disease is a primary reason for this cardiovascular dysfunction, heart failure can also result from an intrinsic malfunction of the cardiac muscle (diabetic cardiomyopathy). The etiology of cardiomyopathy is complex, with changes in cardiac metabolism being considered a major culprit.

The Rodrigues lab, at the University of British Columbia, examines how the heart uses energy, and how this changes under pathological conditions. We use several models of diabetes, ranging from in vivo to in vitro, and multidisciplinary approaches that span physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, and molecular biology. Our discoveries have been published extensively, solidifying our expertise in cardiac metabolism.