Dr Gonzalo del Monte-Nieto received his PhD in 2011 from the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), training in molecular and developmental biology with Prof José Luis de la Pompa and on 3D image analysis with Prof Antoon Moorman (Netherlands). In 2011, he joined Prof Richard Harvey at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute (Sydney, Australia) as a Postdoc. In 2018, he started his own laboratory in the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia).

During his career, he has made seminal discoveries on the mechanisms underpinning the formation of cardiac chambers, valves, epicardium and coronary vessels during embryonic development. His research has led to important insights to better understand cardiovascular disease such as non-compaction cardiomyopathy, atrial septal defects, coronary artery disease, gestational hypoxia, as well as pancreatic cancer.

The research focus of his lab lays in the study of the molecular mechanisms and developmental processes orchestrating heart development and the translation of this knowledge into congenital and adult heart disease, and cardiac regeneration. The lab is also developing innovative image analysis methods in 2D and 3D to streamline the morphological and molecular characterization of heart development and disease.