Contact information
Alex Antonopoulos
Visiting Postdoctoral Clinical Researcher
I am a Postdoctoral Clinical Researcher with a keen interest in the interplay between adipose tissue and the cardiovascular system. My research career in the field of cardiovascular medicine began as a PhD student in the University of Athens, Greece, where I studied the role of adipose tissue-secreted adiponectin in the endothelial function of human vessels. Then in 2011 I received a grant from the European Society of Cardiology and subsequently a Marie Curie Fellowship that allowed me to join Prof. Charalambos Antoniades group in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine as a Postdoctoral Fellow. During those years I expanded my work on adipose tissue by identifying important pathways involved in the cross-talk between epicardial adipose tissue and the heart as well as perivascular adipose tissue and human vessels in patients with ischemic heart disease.
These findings further stimulated my interest in the discovery of methods for the non-invasive phenotyping of human adipose tissue in an effort to couple biology with imaging and have resulted in the construction of a computed tomography (CT)-based methodology which allows detection of coronary inflammation by imaging of perivascular fat. Alterations in perivascular fat as a result of vascular inflammation can be tracked by CT imaging and identify vessels at risk for atherosclerosis progression or plaque rupture. This new imaging biomarker may have important clinical implications for the risk stratification and management of patients with both obstructive and non-obstructive coronary artery disease, and its prognostic value is currently being actively explored in large clinical studies.
Recent publications
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Plasma signature of apoptotic microvesicles is associated with endothelial dysfunction and plaque rupture in acute coronary syndromes.
Journal article
Zacharia E. et al, (2019), J Mol Cell Cardiol
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Development of a risk score for early saphenous vein graft failure: An individual patient data meta-analysis.
Journal article
Antonopoulos AS. et al, (2019), J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg
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Functional cardiac orexin receptors: role of orexin-B/orexin 2 receptor in myocardial protection.
Journal article
Patel VH. et al, (2018), Clin Sci (Lond), 132, 2547 - 2564
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Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Epicardial and Intramyocardial Adiposity as an Early Sign of Myocardial Disease.
Journal article
Antonopoulos AS. and Antoniades C., (2018), Circ Cardiovasc Imaging, 11
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Mechanisms of testosterone deficiency-related endothelial dysfunction: Invited commentary for the Hellenic Journal of Cardiology on: Tsikas et al. "Associations between asymmetric dimethylarginine, nitrite-dependent renal carbonic anhydrase activity and plasma testosterone levels in hypogonadal men".
Journal article
Antonopoulos AS. and Antoniades C., (2018), Hellenic J Cardiol, 59, 207 - 208