Associate Professor Igor Wendt

BSc (Hons) (Monash), PhD (Monash)

Associate Professor - Department of Physiology
Associate Dean (Postgraduate Research Degrees)

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Research in Associate Professor Igor Wendt's laboratory seeks to understand the processes involved in regulating the function of smooth and cardiac muscle.  A major focus of the research is the control of intracellular calcium movements by various cellular calcium handling pathways.  Calcium movements into and out of the cytoplasm of both smooth and cardiac muscle cells are regulated primarily by a variety of proteins located in the plasma membrane and in the sarcoplasmic reticulum, and play a central role in controlling muscle function.

A major aspect of the laboratory’s current research into smooth muscle involves the use of mice with targeted disruptions to genes encoding key calcium transport proteins to investigate the contribution of various calcium handling pathways to overall control of smooth muscle function in both health and disease.  In the area of cardiac muscle, a major focus of the laboratory’s research is the role played by sex and sex hormones in modulating cardiac muscle function.  There is great interest in the possible existence of sex-dependent differences in heart disease and we are investigating the influences of sex hormones, both oestrogen and testosterone, on calcium movements in the heart and on abnormal enlargement (hypertrophy) of the heart.

Associate Professor Wendt collaborates with colleagues at the Baker Heart Research Institute, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Cincinnati, USA.  He is also currently the Victorian representative on the committee of the Australasian section of the International Society for Heart Research:  http://www.baker.edu.au/ishr/home.htm

Recent Publications

Wendt IR, Paul RJ.  (2003)   Energy cost of contraction in rat urinary bladder smooth muscle during anoxia.  Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology, 30, 565-569.

Curl CL, Wendt IR, Canny BJ, Kotsanas G.  (2003)   Effects of ovariectomy and 17beta-estradiol replacement on [Ca²⁺]_i in female rat cardiac myocytes.  Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology, 30, 489-494.

Curl CL, Wendt IR, Kotsanas G.  (2001)   Effects of gender on intracellular [Ca²⁺] in rat cardiac myocytes.  Pflügers Archives, 441, 709-716.

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