Giovanni Paternostro

Research Investigator, The Burnham Institute
Degrees and Awards:
Ph.D., University of Oxford, UK, 1997. M.D., University of Rome, Italy, 1987. M.Sc., University of London, UK, 1990.  European Society of Cardiology Fellowship, 1991. NATO Fellowship, 1992. European Union Followship, 1993. Medical Research Council Fellowship, 1995.

Research Interests:
Cardiac imaging and non-invasive study of metabolism; applications to high-throughput screening. Apoptosis. Genetic and genomic analysis of cardiac aging. Drosophila melanogaster as a model of chronic heart dysfunction.
Selected Publications:
  • Paternostro G, Vignola C, Bartsch DU, Omens JH, McCulloch JH, Reed JC "Age-Associated Cardiac Dysfunction in Drosophila melanogaster" in press, Circulation Research, 2001.
  • Reed JC, Paternostro G "Post-mitochondrial regulation of apostosis during heart failure" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1999, 96(14): 7614-6. 
  • Paternostro G, Pagano D, Gnecchi-Ruscone T, Bonser RS, Camici PG "Insulin resistance in patients with cardiac hypertrophy" Cardiovascular Research, 1999, 42:246-253. 
  • Camici PG, Wijns W, Borgers M, De Silva R, Ferrari R, Heusch G, Knuuti J, Lammertsma AA, Liedtke JA, Paternostro G, Vatner SF "Pathophysiological mechanisms of chronic reversible left ventricular dysfunction due to coronary artery disease (hibernating myocardium)" Circulation, 1997, 96:3205-3214. 
  • Paternostro G, Camici PG, Lammertsma AA, Marinho N, Baliga RA, Kooner JS, Radda GK, Ferrannini E "Cardiac and skeletal muscle insulin resistance in patients with coronary artery disease: a study with positron emission tomography" The Journal of Clinical Investigation" 1996, 98:2094-2099. 
Research Figure:

The heart in Drosophila melanogaster is located dorsally, in the abdomen. This cardiac image (diastolic) was obtained using confocal microscopy in a transgenic fly expressing GFP under the control of  an actin promoter (see reference above: Paternostro et al., Circulation Research, 2001, in press.