Francisco J. Alvarado

Biography

About Me

I was born an raised in Costa Rica, where I also completed Pharmacy School in 2009. After a short stint as a lecturer at the University of Costa Rica, I came to Madison, WI, in 2011 for graduate school working in the lab of Dr. Héctor Valdivia. Shortly after, Dr. Valdivia moved to the University of Michigan. I also transferred to the University of Michigan, where I completed a PhD in Physiology in 2017.  After graduation, I returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a post-doc in the Department of Medicine. I was promoted to Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Cardiovascular Research Center in 2022.

Research Interests

My broad interest is to understand how dysregulation of Ca²⁺ homeostasis, due to mutations in Ca²⁺-handling proteins or secondary to other etiologies, affects cardiac function. I have applied state-of-the-art techniques, including the measurement of cellular Ca²⁺ signals with confocal microscopy, pharmacological studies with radioligands, ex vivo functional assays of cardiac function, biochemical assays, and in vivo recordings of electrocardiograms and intracardiac electrical activity, to advance the field’s understanding of the role of ryanodine receptor 2 (RyR2) dysfunction in the development of cardiac hypertrophy and arrhythmia, and the role of Ca²⁺ mishandling as the underlying cause of heart disease.

Publications

Google Scholar | PubMed | ORCiD

Current Funding

R01HL161070 and R01HL167195 from the National Institutes of Health | NIH Reporter

Hobbies

In my free time, I enjoy cooking and photography. I am also becoming more and more interested in home improvement. My current project is to finish my home’s basement.