Education and Training

Ph.D.: University of Leicester, Cardiovascular Sciences
Postdoctoral Fellowship: University of Alabama at Birmingham, Calcium Signaling in the Heart

Research Interests

Historically, females have been understudied in the context of preclinical and clinical trials contributing to an overall reduced knowledge of basic female cardiovascular biology and also how the female heart responds to physiological and pathological stress.

Therefore, the overall mission of the Collins lab is to understand the mechanisms contributing to female cardiovascular health and resilience.

Under this larger thematic focus, the Collins lab has several areas of active investigation, they include:

• Understanding the mechanisms that contribute to pregnancy-induced cardiac growth and its reversal.
• Pathophysiological and etiological mechanisms of peripartum cardiomyopathy and other pregnancy-associated cardiovascular complications.
• The response of the female heart to pathological stressors and mechanisms underlying sex-dependent changes in post-infarction remodeling.

Featured Publications

For a complete list of publications, go to Dr. Collin's bibliography at My NCBI

• Warrington JP, Collins HE, Davidge ST, do Carmo JM, Goulopoulou S, Intapad S, Loria AS, Sones JL, Wold LE, Zinkhan EK, Alexander BT. Guidelines for in vivo models of developmental programming of cardiovascular disease risk. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2024 Jul 1;327(1):H221-H241. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00060.2024. Epub 2024 May 31. PMID: 38819382.
• Collins HE, Alexander BT, Care AS, Davenport MH, Davidge ST, Eghbali M, Giussani DA, Hoes MF, Julian CG, LaVoie HA, Olfert IM, Ozanne SE, Bytautiene Prewit E, Warrington JP, Zhang L, Goulopoulou S. Guidelines for assessing maternal cardiovascular physiology during pregnancy and postpartum. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2024 Jul 1;327(1):H191-H220. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00055.2024. Epub 2024 May 17. PMID: 38758127.
• Fulghum KL, Collins HE, Lorkiewicz PK, Cassel TA, Fan TWM, Hill BG. Exercise-induced changes in myocardial glucose utilization during periods of active cardiac growth. J Mol Cell Cardiol. 2024 Jun;191:50-62. doi: 10.1016/j.yjmcc.2024.04.014. Epub 2024 May 3. PMID: 38703412; PMCID: PMC11135805.
• Schulman-Geltzer EB, Fulghum KL, Singhal RA, Hill BG, Collins HE. Cardiac mitochondrial metabolism during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2024 May 1;326(5):H1324-H1335. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00127.2024. Epub 2024 Mar 29. PMID: 38551485.
• Kane MS, Benavides GA, Osuma E, Johnson MS, Collins HE, He Y, Westbrook D, Litovsky SH, Mitra K, Chatham JC, Darley-Usmar V, Young ME, Zhang J. The interplay between sex, time of day, fasting status, and their impact on cardiac mitochondrial structure, function, and dynamics. Sci Rep. 2023 Dec 7;13(1):21638. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-49018-z. PMID: 38062139; PMCID: PMC10703790.
• Schulman-Geltzer EB, Collins HE, Hill BG, Fulghum KL. Coordinated Metabolic Responses Facilitate Cardiac Growth in Pregnancy and Exercise. Curr Heart Fail Rep. 2023 Oct;20(5):441-450. doi: 10.1007/s11897-023-00622-0. Epub 2023 Aug 15. PMID: 37581772; PMCID: PMC10589193.
• Collins HE. Female cardiovascular biology and resilience in the setting of physiological and pathological stress. Redox Biol. 2023 Jul;63:102747. doi: 10.1016/j.redox.2023.102747. Epub 2023 May 16. PMID: 37216702; PMCID: PMC10209889.
• Ouyang X, Bakshi S, Benavides GA, Sun Z, Hernandez-Moreno G, Collins HE, Kane MS, Litovsky S, Young ME, Chatham JC, Darley-Usmar V, Wende AR, Zhang J. Cardiomyocyte ZKSCAN3 regulates remodeling following pressure-overload. Physiol Rep. 2023 May;11(9):e15686. doi: 10.14814/phy2.15686. PMID: 37144628; PMCID: PMC10161215.
• Fulghum K, Collins HE, Jones SP, Hill BG. Influence of biological sex and exercise on murine cardiac metabolism. J Sport Health Sci. 2022 Jul;11(4):479-494. doi: 10.1016/j.jshs.2022.06.001. Epub 2022 Jun 7. PMID: 35688382; PMCID: PMC9338340.