The Carll Laboratory

Investigating how airborne toxicants and other environmental stressors affect cardiac function to guide government policies and inform the public.

Carll Lab, March 2024

 

Research

Renata Salatini and Claudia Arab Visting PhD Students from Brazil Carll Lab, Summer 2018Effects of e-cigarette aerosol (black) on cardiac conduction in mice.Carll Lab alumnus, Affan Irfan, MD, PhDExposure to airborne toxicants is tied to arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, and heart failure in the general public. Our team seeks to validate and better understand these associations. We investigate how inhaled toxicants impair cardiac conduction and contraction in both rodents and humans, with particular interest in the nervous system’s role. We study the impacts of multiple toxicants, including e-cigarette aerosols, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter from many sources (automobiles, urban atmospheres, and consumer products).

Current Investigative Questions

In both rodents and humans, the Carll lab investigates; 

  1. What are the neural and cellular pathways underlying pollutant-induced myocardial dysfunction and remodeling?
  2. How do e-cigarette aerosols adversely affect cardiac function, intracellular signaling, and neuroregulation? 
  3. How do constituents contribute to the cardiac risks of exposure to e-cigarette aerosols?

Findings

Our recent findings suggest that tobacco product aerosols alter cardiac conduction and promote arrhythmia in both mice and humans through autonomic, neural, and endocrine pathways.

Lab Members

Alex Carll, PhD, MSPH

Anand Ramalingam, PhD – Postdoctoral Researcher

Sean Raph, PhD – Postdoctoral Researcher

Brittany Reynolds, BS – Doctoral Student

Romith Paily – Undergraduate Student

 

Alumni

Affan Irfan, MD, PhD

Kyle Fulghum, MS

Claudia Arab, PhD

Renata Salatini, PhD

Nazratan Naeem


Positions and Education

Alex Carll's Faculty Page

Alex Carll's Biosketch

Positions

Assistant Professor (tenure-track), Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Louisville

Education

Post-Doc, 2013-2015, Harvard University, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Molecular and Integrative Physiological Sciences.

Ph.D. 2012, University of North Carolina (UNC)-Chapel Hill, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Environmental Health Sciences.

M.S.P.H. 2008, UNC-Chapel Hill, School of Public Health, Environmental Sciences & Engineering.

A.B. 2004, Duke University, Environmental Science & Policy

Prior Training

Pre-doctoral Fellow, 2006-2012, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Cardiopulmonary and Immunotoxicology Branch.

Post-doctoral Research Fellow, 2013-2015, Harvard School of Public Health, Dept. of Environmental Health, Program in Molecular and Integrative Physiological Sciences 

News and Media

Selected Publications

Find all papers and citations via ResearchGate or the National Library of Medicine

  • Kucera C, Ramalingam A, Srivastava S, Bhatnagar A, Carll AP. Nicotine formulation influences the autonomic and arrhythmogenic effects of electronic cigarettes (2024). Nicotine Tob Res. 26(4):536-544. PMID: 38011908.
  • Carll AP, Arab C, Salatini R, Miles MD, Nystoriak MA, Fulghum KL, Riggs DW, Shirk GA, Theis WS, Talebi N, Bhatnagar A, Conklin DJ (2022). E-cigarettes and their lone constituents induce cardiac arrhythmia and conduction defects in mice.Nature Communications. 13(1):6088. PMID: 36284091. PMCID: PMC9596490.

Alex Carll, Ph.D, M.S.P.H.

Contact 

Alex P. Carll, Ph.D., M.S.P.H.

Department of Physiology

School of Medicine

Alex.Carll@Louisville.edu

Room 407, Baxter II

580 South Preston St.

Louisville KY 40202