Dr. Francesco Giardini
Biomedical Engineer
Research Interests:
- Development of next-generation optical imaging technologies for the structural and functional investigation of cardiac tissue across multiple spatial scales.
- Characterization of disease-induced cardiac remodeling and its role in the mechanisms linking structural alterations, arrhythmogenesis, and sudden cardiac death.
- Data-driven computational modeling for personalized prediction of arrhythmic risk and cardiac electrophysiological behavior.
Brief CV:
Francesco Giardini received his bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering in 2015 and his master's degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2018, both from the University of Florence. In his master's thesis, he developed software tools to reconstruct the 3D cytoarchitecture of cardiac tissue from microscopy images. In 2019, he received a short-term EMBO fellowship to visit Dr. Martin Bishop at the Cardiac Electro-Mechanics Research Group (CEMRG) at King's College London. In 2022, he received his PhD in Molecular Medicine from the University of Siena conducting experimental work in the OptoCARD Lab in Florence, Italy. He now has a Postdoc position at the IEKM, Freiburg, Germany. There, he works on 3D analysis and modeling tools based on high-resolution whole-heart reconstructions to study cardiac electrical function. In 2025, he was awarded the DGK Research Fellowship from the German Society of Cardiology (DGK) to support his independent research in cardiovascular bioengineering.
Selected Publications:
- Giardini F., Olianti C., Marchal G.A., Campos F., Romanelli V., Steyer J., Madl J., Piersanti R., Arecchi G., Perumal Vanaja I., Biasci V., Rog-Zielinska E.A., Nesi G., Loew L.M., Cerbai E., Chelko S.P., Regazzoni F., Loewe A., Bishop M.J., Mongillo M., Kohl P., Zaglia T., Zgierski-Johnston C.M., Sacconi L. Correlative imaging integrates electrophysiology with three-dimensional murine heart reconstruction to reveal electrical coupling between cell types. Nature Cardiovascular Research, doi: 10.1038/s44161-025-00728-9. Online ahead of print. (2025).
- Vermoortele D., Olianti C., Amoni M., Giardini F., De Buck S., Nagaraju C.K., Willems R., Roderick H.L., Sipido K.R., Sacconi L., Claus P. Precision sampling of discrete sites identified during in-vivo functional testing in the mammalian heart. Communication Engineering, 3(1):170. doi:10.1038/s44172-024-00307-z. (2024).
- Pioner J.M., Vitale G., Steczina S., Langione M., Margara F., Santini L., Giardini F., Lazzeri E., Piroddi N.,Scellini B., Palandri C., Schuldt M., Spinelli V., Girolami F., Mazzarotto F., van der Velden J., Cerbai E., Tesi C.,Olivotto I., Bueno-Orovio A., Sacconi L., Coppini R., Ferrantini C., Regnier M., Poggesi C. Slower CalciumHandling Balances Faster Cross-Bridge Cycling in Human MYBPC3 HCM. Circulation Research, 132(5):628-644. doi:https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.122.32195610.1161/CIRCRESAHA.122.321956 (2023).
- Olianti C.*, Giardini F.*, Lazzeri E.*, Costantini I., Silvestri L., Coppini R., Cerbai E., Pavone F.S., Sacconi L. Optical clearing in cardiac imaging: A comparative study. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 168:10. doi:10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2021.07.012 (2022).
- Giardini, F., Lazzeri, E., Vitale, G., Ferrantini, C., Costantini, I., Pavone, F. S., Poggesi, C., Bocchi, L. and Sacconi, L. Quantification of Myocyte Disarray in Human Cardiac Tissue. Frontiers in Physiology, 12(750364). doi:10.3389/fphys.2021.750364 (2021).