Dr Miles De Blasio is a Senior Researcher and head of the Cardio-Metabolic Physiology Laboratory and co-head of the Heart Failure Pharmacology Laboratory in the Drug Discovery Biology (DDB) theme at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS). He holds an Honorary Research Collaborator position at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Department of Pharmacology at Monash Clayton.

Dr De Blasio completed his PhD in 2004 (Uni Adelaide) where he studied the endocrine and metabolic basis of diabetes and obesity after fetal growth restriction. He then spent 4-years in industry with the Australian Pork Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) before moving to the University of Cambridge (UK) to undertake a very successful post-doctoral research project investigating fetal leptin administration on lung and heart development. Dr De Blasio is well-recognised for his contributions to the fetal and postnatal physiology field.

In 2015 he returned to Australia and was recruited to the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute by Prof Rebecca Ritchie (now Drug Discovery Biology Theme leader at Monash MIPS), to investigate new treatments for diabetic cardiomyopathy in pre-clinical models of diabetes; representing a significant change of research direction. In 2020, he moved to Monash University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) Parkville, where he is now the lead researcher investigating new treatments for diabetic cardiomyopathy including the use of pharmacological agents and cardiac-selective gene therapies to target pathways involved in cardioprotection. This includes the hexosamine biosynthesis pathway, particularly O-GlcNAcylation of proteins, and the cardiac adiponectin signalling pathway. He has an overarching vision to make significant contributions to the development of novel therapies for diabetic cardiomyopathy.

His track record to 2015 was investigating the fetal origins of obesity and diabetes in large animal models (sheep) and clinical trials (MiG and ACHOIS RCTs). He has been a CI on 4 NHMRC project grants investigating interventions for insulin resistance, beta-cell plasticity and diabetic cardiomyopathy and has obtained >$7million in funding as CI or named investigator. He has considerable experience with in vivo pre-clinical models of diabetes and metabolic syndrome, and design and administration of pharmaceutical and cardiac-selective gene therapies in vivo and in vitro, having published 68 career papers (43 in last 5 years). His research parameters indicate his research is high impact in the field (>2900 citations, FWCI=2.75, April 2023). He displays outstanding leadership qualities having supervised 10 PhD and 15 Honours students to completion.