Giselle Melendez

Dr. Giselle C. Meléndez is an MD-scientist at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston Salem, NC. Through basic science, translational, and clinical studies, Dr. Meléndez is deeply committed to improving the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of cardiac complications of cancer therapies and identifying novel interventions to prevent and treat cardiotoxicity in cancer survivors. Specifically, her research focuses on the contribution of extracellular matrix remodeling, inflammation, and cardiac fibrosis to the development of left ventricular dysfunction. She serves as an investigator in clinical trials employing cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging to evaluate subclinical cardiac tissue characteristics; she has adapted these clinical CMR techniques to her pre-clinical rodent and non-human primate models cardiotoxicity to enhance the translatability of her research. Additionally, Dr. Meléndez serves as a peer reviewer of numerous prestigious journals, she is a standing member of the National Institute of Health (NIH), Therapeutic Development and Preclinical Studies study section and she is currently funded by grants from the NIH.