Contreras Group

The Contreras Group studies how cells acquire and maintain their identity — and what goes wrong when that process fails in congenital, structural, and metabolic heart disease. Based at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, we work from the level of chromatin to the whole organism to understand what makes a cardiomyocyte a cardiomyocyte or an endothelial cell an endothelial cell, and how that identity is lost or corrupted in disease.

What we study

Our program spans human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) models of congenital heart disease and diabetic cardiomyopathy; Nkx2-5 transcription factor biology; regulatory epigenomics; cell-cycle control and DNA-replication dynamics; and zebrafish and medaka models of cardiac physiology. To connect these scales, we integrate multi-omics — single-cell and bulk transcriptomics, DDA and DIA proteomics and phospho-proteomics, MNase-seq, and CUT&RUN/Tag — with high-dimensional imaging and spectral flow cytometry.

The team

I currently lead a team of three: two Postdoctoral Fellows and a Senior Research Assistant. More broadly, I supervise PhD, honours and summer students, research assistants and postdocs, and I hold a Conjoint Lecturer position at UNSW Sydney, Faculty of Medicine & Health.

Funding and independence

I have secured more than A$5.5M as Chief Investigator across MRFF, NSW Health, the Heart Foundation, MAWA, NSW CVRN and Miltenyi funding schemes. This includes a Cardiovascular Early–Mid Career Researcher Grant (July 2026 – July 2029) supporting my independent program on cardiomyocyte identity in congenital heart disease.

Open tools for the community

We build open resources that others can use. I created OpenEMMU, an open-source EdU-multiplexing platform for quantifying DNA replication and cell-cycle dynamics in cells, 3D organs and whole organisms (iScience, 2025), and led a scalable MNase-seq framework for reproducible nucleosome profiling in pluripotent stem cells and cardiomyocytes (CSBJ, 2026). I am also co-inventor on a patent for PDGF-derived peptides (WO2024050602A1) in development for regenerative medicine.

Background

I trained at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, graduating first in my cohort with maximum distinction (2012, ranked #1) after studying Wnt-PCP signalling and Syndecan-4 in neurulation and cochlear development with Prof. Juan Larraín. My PhD with Prof. Enrique Brandan — co-supervised by Prof. Fabio Rossi (University of British Columbia) — examined the fate, plasticity and heterogeneity of tissue-resident fibro-adipogenic progenitors in muscle regeneration and heart repair, dissecting PDGF, TGF-β and WNT cross-talk in fibrosis and myopathy. It received the best PhD thesis prize (2020).

Service and recognition

I serve on the editorial boards of Biological Research (Springer Nature), Differentiation and Frontiers, review for leading cell and molecular biology journals and for national and international funding bodies, and co-founded the IUBMB Trainee Initiative. Recognitions include the Hermann Niemeyer Medal (2016), the Humberto Maturana Prize (2022), the inaugural ASSCR Rising Star Award (2022) and the Sydney Cardiovascular Rising Star Award (2024), among other accolades.