DrJose Sanchez Alonso-Mardones

Dr. Jose Sanchez-Alonso is a British Heart Foundation (BHF) Research Fellow and Group Leader at the National Heart and Lung Institute. His research focuses on the nanoscale organization of cardiomyocyte signalling and neuro-cardiac communication.

Dr. Sanchez-Alonso trained as an electrophysiologist following undergraduate studies in Neurobiology. He began his research career at the Complutense University of Madrid under the supervision of Professor A. Colino, where he developed expertise in neuronal physiology and patch-clamp electrophysiology. He completed his PhD in Neuroscience in 2012, investigating the role of calcium and potassium currents in regulating intrinsic neuronal excitability. This work resulted in publications in journals including Neuroscience Letters, Neuroscience, and the Journal of Physiology.

In 2013, he joined the Functional Microscopy Group at the National Heart and Lung Institute, led by Professor Julia Gorelik, as a Research Associate. His work has focused on the characterization of nanoscale signalling domains in cardiomyocytes in both health and disease. His research has contributed to understanding how the spatial organization of voltage-gated calcium channels regulates normal cardiomyocyte function and how membrane disorganization promotes arrhythmogenesis. His work has resulted in publications in leading journals including Circulation, Circulation Research, and Nature Communications, among others.

Dr. Sanchez-Alonso has extensive expertise in advanced scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM), including the development and application of “smart” patch-clamp methodologies that enable the localization and functional analysis of ion channels directly at the cell membrane with nanoscale precision.

He currently leads a BHF-funded research programme investigating the neuro-cardiac junction, the specialized interface between sympathetic neurons and cardiomyocytes, combining approaches from neuroscience, cardiac electrophysiology, and super-resolution functional imaging to study neuro-cardiac communication at nanometre resolution.