Dr Claudio Cortés

Originally from Santiago, Chile, I did my BSc in Biology at the Universidad de Chile and started my long-term interest in shapes and forms in biology. I then did my PhD in the University of Queensland, studying rare genetic diseases and ultimately improving diagnostics and patient management. From there, I focused on cardiovascular disease (the leading cause of death globally) and moved to Marseilles, France, where I discovered new links between the heart muscle and other muscles in our body.

I eventually joined the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics at the University of Oxford, supported by a Wellcome Consortium Grant, working alongside Professor Paul Riley on the origins and progression of congenital heart disease.

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 can now look at these processes in unprecedented detail, opening a world of possibilities in basic and translational science. My research incorporates anatomy, cell biology, microscopy, and mathematical modelling into how our heart grows and changes over time.

I previously taught Cell and Developmental Biology in Wycliffe Hall, Biochemistry at New College, and Brain and Behaviour at Exeter College. Here at LMH, I am a tutor for Organisation of the Body for 1st Year Medical Students.

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.

I am deeply passionate about Public Engagement as a way of democratising knowledge, which I develop as Lead of Pint of Science Oxford. I particularly enjoy interacting with other creatives around my research, e.g. the interactive digital artwork Synchrony developed in collaboration with Andy Lomas, about the growth and beating of the developing heart.