Celebrating staff excellence in NHLI’s 2026 academic promotions

The National Heart and Lung Institute is delighted that four of our academics have been recognised for their outstanding work in the most recent round of promotions at Imperial.

We spoke to our newly promoted academics about their backgrounds, research, and hopes for the future.

Jorge Bernardino de la Serna, promoted to Associate Professor in Inhalation Toxicology and Pharmacology

What is your academic background?

I trained originally in Chemistry (BSc, MSc) and Biochemistry (a second MSc), then completed my PhD in Lung Surfactant Biophysics. From there, my path took me through several formative postdoctoral positions: first at the Centre for Biomembrane Physics (MEMPHYS) at the University of Southern Denmark, then to the University of Oxford. These experiences shaped me into a translational experimental biophysicist, with a strong background in advanced quantitative fluorescence super-resolution microscopy.

I am now an Associate Professor of Inhalation Toxicology and Pharmacology. I lead the Mechanisms of Inhalation Toxicology, Physiopathology and Pharmacology group, and I co-lead the Core and Advanced modules in the New Horizons in Pharmacology stream of the MSc Genes, Drugs and Stem Cells - Novel Therapies. I am a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, the Royal Society of Biology, and The Royal Society of Chemistry.

The path that got me here has been built entirely on collaboration and the generosity of mentors and colleagues Dr Jorge Bernardino de la Serna Associate Professor in Inhalation Toxicology and Pharmacology

What interesting research are you currently working on?

My work spans three threads that feed into one another. We're building lung-on-chip platforms – an Airway Smooth Muscle-on-a-Chip and a dynamic breathing Exposure-on-a-Chip – which are now feeding into a next-generation Immune-Competent Breathing Lung Cancer-on-Chip. Essentially, these are new tools that let us model the lung more faithfully. The Exposure-on-Chip work has a strong environmental health dimension, letting us resolve the earliest molecular events of the lung's response to environmental exposures like micro- and nano-plastics.

Alongside that, we're engineering GLP-1-functionalised PEGylated liposomes to target receptors on alveolar epithelial cells, repurposing metabolic biology for a genuinely new route into lung-directed therapy.

We're also developing new imaging tools for advanced quantitative fluorescence microscopy, aiming to resolve the nanoscale world of receptor activation processes and the role of biomolecular condensates in physiology and pathology. It's early days on some of it, but that's exactly what makes it exciting.

How do you feel about your promotion?

I'm honoured and genuinely delighted. Looking back at the path that got me here – a chemistry degree in Madrid, labs in Denmark and Oxford, leading a microscopy lab at the Science and Technology Facilities Council, and now building a research group at Imperial while training and shaping students' pathways in Pharmacology – it's been built entirely on collaboration and the generosity of mentors and colleagues along the way.

I've tried to bring the same rigour and honesty they showed me into how I run my own group, and this promotion feels like recognition of that shared effort as much as anything individual. It comes with real responsibility too: to keep that spirit of collaboration and respect alive for the students and postdocs now coming up through the group.

Sara Fontanella, promoted to Associate Professor in Biomedical Modelling

What is your academic background?

I am a statistician by training and completed my PhD at the University of Chieti-Pescara in Italy, where I worked on statistical methods for complex, high-dimensional data. I then continued this methodological work through postdoctoral positions at the Open University and the University of Turin.

When I moved to Imperial in 2016 for a postdoctoral position, my research became more focused on medical applications, particularly for childhood asthma and allergic diseases. Since then, I have continued to combine both aspects of my background, developing statistical methods and applying them to questions in medical research.

I have been very fortunate to work with fantastic mentors and collaborators who have challenged, supported and inspired me Dr Sara Fontanella Associate Professor in Biomedical Modelling

What interesting research are you currently working on?

I am particularly interested in how statistics, machine learning and AI can help us understand complex diseases and make better use of increasingly complex medical data. Much of my current work focuses on asthma and allergic diseases, particularly disease heterogeneity.

I recently received a Medical Research Foundation Fellowship to develop AI-based models that use patterns of allergic sensitisation to improve asthma diagnosis and predict which children are at risk of developing the disease. I am also continuing to develop statistical and machine learning methods for medical research.

How do you feel about your promotion?

I am absolutely delighted about my promotion. I have been very fortunate to work with fantastic mentors and collaborators who have challenged, supported and inspired me, and with a research team that makes the work genuinely enjoyable. I am also very grateful to my family for all their support, particularly over the last few years. I am proud of what we have achieved so far and really excited about where our research goes next.

Michela Noseda, promoted to Professor of Cardiovascular Science

What is your academic background?

I trained in medicine in Rome, then crossed the Atlantic for my postdoctoral years. I first went to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, then the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (where the work I carried out resulted in my PhD) and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. After that, I moved to the National Heart and Lung Institute, where I worked my way up from research associate, to fellow, to where I am now.

Along the way, my focus shifted from cardiac stem cell biology to heart failure, using what we learn in the healthy heart as a necessary step toward understanding what goes wrong in disease. That is where most of my work sits today.

Almost nothing interesting in this field happens through one lab working alone anymore, and I want to keep championing this way of working Professor Michela Noseda Professor of Cardiology

What interesting research are you currently working on?

I think of it simply: to fix something, you first need to know how it works. That principle shapes everything we do. My focus is understanding heart failure across its many different causes, using single cell and spatial biology approaches alongside human iPSC derived disease models to test what the molecular differences we find mean functionally.

None of that is possible without mapping the healthy heart as a baseline. My team and I look at normal variation on two fronts: across individuals, through a study of nearly 300 healthy hearts, and across the organ itself, through a detailed map spanning 28 anatomical regions. Understanding the heart, region by region, cell by cell, is what I am most excited about right now, because it's where disease unfolds. Looking ahead, moving spatial biology from 2D to 3D is the next frontier.

The latest work from the heart failure and cardiomyopathy side of this programme was recently published in Science Translational Medicine. It shows the molecular landscape of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy across different genetic causes and disease stages – work that should help move us toward more precise informed treatment.

How do you feel about your promotion?

Honestly, it still hasn't fully sunk in. It has been a long road from being a postdoc to professor. I think what I feel most is gratitude, to my team, to my collaborators, and to the mentors who backed me early on when the path was far less certain than it looks in hindsight.
I have believed in team science since the earliest days of my career, long before it became the expected way of working, and I think that belief is part of what got me here. Almost nothing interesting in this field happens through one lab working alone anymore, and I want to keep championing that way of working as I move into this role.

I also want to say something to the researchers starting out now, especially women: you can reconcile a demanding career with a family. I remember Saturday nights after the cinema, coming back to the lab at midnight with my husband to help me run 12-hour time points, because that is what the experiment needed that week. My kids quite literally grew up in the lab – alongside everything else growing there! They were at conferences before they turned one, in cities all over the world. Before they finished primary school, they had opinions on whether a presenter was engaging or whether the slides looked good. It was not always easy, but it was possible and often fun and exciting too; having a genuinely supportive family made it so.

Looking forward, I want to use this position to make sure the next generation of researchers – in my group, in the department, and beyond – get the same opportunities I was given. If I can make that path even a little easier for the people coming after me, that will matter more to me than the title of professor itself.

Amanda Varnava, promoted to Professor of Practice (Cardiology)

What is your academic background?

I started my academic career exploring the link between genotype and pathological phenotype in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). The study in question was one of the first reports of how a specific gene variant could lead to distinct changes in the hearts of patients who all shared the same heart muscle condition.

Following this, I have pursued a career in managing patients with cardiomyopathies and addressing their individual risks. I have led studies into the risks of patients with both inherited heart muscle conditions (HCM) and inherited electrical problems (Brugada syndrome in particular).

We are now on the cusp of true innovations that may transform and protect young people's lives Professor Amanda Varnava Professor of Practice (Cardiology)

What interesting research are you currently working on?

We are leading a 5-year study, Predict-VF, into a novel electrocardiogram (ECG) method of assessing the risk of sudden death in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Alongside this, we are looking at novel wearable technology to detect the sudden death condition of Brugada syndrome, and proposing a study into the detection of early cardiomyopathy using AI-enabled ECGs.

How do you feel about your promotion?

I am extremely honoured to have received this promotion. It is an absolute privilege to work in this exciting field of cardiology. Research into inherited heart conditions that have, until now, led to many sudden deaths in otherwise fit and healthy young individuals is rapidly evolving.

We are now on the cusp of true innovations that may transform and protect young people's lives, and this promotion really emphasises the importance of the field.