Rate My Professor Regis Lamberts

Regis Lamberts is an Honorary Associate Professor and Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Physiology within the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Otago. Possessing qualifications of BSc, MSc, and PhD, he began his academic career at the institution as a Lecturer in August 2010, continued in that role from February 2013 to January 2020, and advanced to Associate Professor in February 2020. He has served as Deputy Head of Department (Teaching) and was recently awarded the Distinguished Academic Teacher award for his contributions to education. As a Principal Investigator in HeartOtago, Lamberts specializes in cardiovascular physiology.

Throughout his research career, Lamberts has examined how the heart sustains its pump function under stress conditions. In the last decade, his investigations have concentrated on alterations in autonomic regulation and cardiac function associated with obesity and diabetes. More recently, this has expanded to the functional interplay between epicardial adipose tissue and the heart, particularly in the context of cardiac arrhythmias and obesity. Leveraging HeartOtago resources, he acquires functional biomedical data at cellular and organ levels, human myocardial tissue, and clinical information to foster translational insights essential for developing targeted therapies for individuals with metabolic diseases and arrhythmias. Key publications encompass 'Cross-talk between cardiac muscle and coronary vasculature' (Physiological Reviews, 2006), 'Reactive Oxygen Species–Induced Stimulation of 5′ AMP-Activated Protein Kinase Mediates Sevoflurane-Induced Cardioprotection' (Circulation, 2009), 'Type-2 diabetes increases autophagy in the human heart through promotion of Beclin-1 mediated pathway' (International Journal of Cardiology, 2016), and 'Cardiac effects of myoregulin in ischemia-reperfusion' (Peptides, 2024). With 122 publications accumulating over 2,000 citations, his scholarship exerts considerable influence in cardiovascular research. Lamberts has obtained significant funding, including a $194,385 Heart Foundation grant in 2018 for investigating CaMKII inhibition as a target for atherosclerosis.