An affair of the heart

Abstract

Popular culture attributes special qualities to the heart, including romantic love. These notions are enshrined in our language and reinforced each St Valentine's Day. In fact, the heart is a pump, and its special functional role in the body has been appreciated since antiquity. My "affair of the heart" began shortly after arriving at Griffith University in 1980. The special environment in the School of Science at the time, my earlier exposure to the principles of cardiovascular physiology at the University of Queensland and Case Western Reserve University, and a fortuitous grant from the National Heart Foundation of Australia launched me on a project to better understand the relationship between cardiac metabolism and function. I wish to tell the story of my research as it has unfolded since then. In so doing, l will endeavour to develop the following themes: normal and abnormal heart function, pathogenesis of ischaemic injury, natural cardioprotective mechanisms, paradoxes and controversies of heart function, technology and experimentation in cardiovascular research, new paradigms and research directions.