Claudio Cortés
Cardiac embryologist
Nature has always fascinated me – its forms, colours, and sheer beauty. And within these almost endless forms, I see a fundamental question: do all these shapes have anything in common? As it turns out, they do. Most of our bodies are shaped by the behaviour of cells while we are in the womb, and we carry that history with us for the rest of our lives.
Every cell in our body tells a story: where did it come from, how did it get there, and what does it do? We are the result of trillions of choices made by cells in our bodies, and I study these choices (and their consequences) in the embryonic heart, our first organ to form. I focus on how our heart ends up with four chambers that work together to pump blood through our bodies, and how it starts beating. Congenital heart defects affect over 1 in every 100 newborns, yet we are far from fully understanding their causes and mechanisms. Thanks to novel experimental and computational tools, we are now able to look at these processes in unprecedented detail, opening a world of possibilities in basic and translational science. It is a very exciting time to be involved in biomedical research, with breakthroughs and ideas from various fields coming together and expanding what is possible!
I did my undergrad in Chile, where my Developmental Biology course put me on the path that I have been on since. After a PhD in Brisbane, Australia, and a postdoctoral stint in Marseille, France, I am very much enjoying the vibrant environment at the University of Oxford.
I am a stalwart advocate for ethical and inclusive research, which brings people with lived experience and the broader public into the conversation about what we do and why we do it.
Public engagement as a way of democratising knowledge is something that I am deeply passionate about, which I develop as one of the Oxford Leads for Pint of Science. I particularly enjoy interactions of our research with other creatives, such as the interactive digital artwork Synchrony developed in collaboration with Andy Lomas, about the growth and beat of the developing heart.
I am privileged to be supported by the Wellcome Trust and the British Heart Foundation, and I use this privilege to promote research into, and awareness of, the impact of congenital heart defects on human health.
Find out more:
The Human Developmental Biology Initiative – Public Engagement projects
