University of Louisville researcher receives national award for excellence in integrative physiology

What began as a focused effort to better understand the female heart has grown into a nationally recognized research program for Helen E. Collins, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. Her work is helping reshape how scientists and clinicians think about health across the whole person. 

Collins, a researcher in the Center for Cardiometabolic Science in the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute, has been named the 2026 recipient of the Arthur C. Guyton Award for Excellence in Integrative Physiology and Medicine. Presented annually by the American Physiological Society (APS), the award recognizes an early-career, independent investigator whose research program demonstrates exceptional promise in advancing the understanding of physiological systems through quantitative and integrative approaches. 

She received a $10,000 research honorarium and was recognized at the APS Physiology Summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where several trainees from her laboratory will also present their work. 

Established in 1993, the Guyton Award commemorates the legacy of Dr. Arthur C. Guyton, a pioneer in cardiovascular physiology and mathematical modeling of physiological systems. Today, it remains one of the most prestigious distinctions for early-career scientists in the field and reflects a commitment to understanding how complex physiological systems work together to maintain health.  

That systems-level perspective, grounded in integrative physiology and feedback control theory, is a principle central to Collins’ work.  

Her work focuses on how the female heart adapts to physiological and pathological stress, with particular emphasis on pregnancy, the postpartum period and ischemic injury. Using advanced techniques including metabolomics, stable isotope tracing, high-resolution echocardiography, multi-omic analyses and mitochondrial respirometry her lab examines the metabolic, structural and functional changes that occur during cardiac adaptation.  

But rather than studying the heart in isolation, Collins’ research takes a broader view. 

“My research program moves beyond a ‘heart-only’ focus by recognizing that the heart does not function in isolation; it operates within a network of interconnected organ systems,” Collins said. “By treating pregnancy as a natural stress test, we can better understand how the physiological balance is maintained, or disrupted, across the entire body.” 

Her team’s work on organ-to-organ communication, including interactions between the heart and liver, highlights how systems work together to meet the body’s changing demands. Recent findings show that the liver supplies ketone bodies to fuel the heart during pregnancy, while broader metabolic mapping reveals biochemical patterns that extend well beyond the cardiovascular system. 

This integrative approach is also helping researchers better understand how reproductive health influences long-term outcomes, including the development of conditions like heart failure later in life. 

“Dr. Collins exemplifies the integrative physiologist that Dr. Guyton’s legacy was designed to honor,” said Steven P. Jones, professor of physiology and director of the Center for Cardiometabolic Science at the University of Louisville. “Her work links whole-body hemodynamics, cardiac structure and function, metabolic remodeling and cellular signaling in ways that are both scientifically rigorous and deeply impactful for women’s cardiovascular health. This award is a well-deserved recognition of her outstanding promise as a scientist and leader.” 

In addition to expanding understanding of how the body functions as a whole, Collins’ research is helping shift care toward a more proactive, prevention-focused model. 

“By establishing a rigorous understanding of what is ‘normal’ versus ‘maladaptive,’ we can begin to identify early signals of disease long before failure occurs,” Collins said. “Our goal is to develop predictive models and biomarkers that allow us to identify at-risk women early and intervene sooner.” 

Her lab is working to define key metabolic “switches” that determine whether the heart adapts successfully to stress, laying the groundwork for more personalized approaches to care based on individual’s physiology. 

Since joining UofL in 2019 after postdoctoral training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Collins has built an independent research program supported by NIH R01 funding and has published more than 20 peer-reviewed papers as a faculty member in leading journals, including Circulation Research and the American Journal of Physiology–Heart and Circulatory Physiology. She will be promoted to associate professor effective July 1, 2026. 

In addition to her research, Collins is a dedicated mentor and national leader, serving on editorial boards and contributing to committees within the American Heart Association, APS and the International Society for Heart Research. 

“Receiving the Arthur C. Guyton Award is a profound honor, and I am deeply grateful for APS and my mentors in the Center for their continued support of my research,” Collins said. “The principles of quantitative, integrative physiology and feedback control are the foundation of everything we do in the laboratory. To be recognized in Dr. Guyton's name is such an incredible privilege, and it reinforces my commitment to understanding how the body maintains health—and why it sometimes fails—in ways that can improve outcomes for women.” 

Her work addresses a critical gap in health research. Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of maternal mortality in the United States, and women have historically been underrepresented in research studies. Collins’ work reflects a broader vision of moving beyond treating disease to fully understanding health as the product of interconnected systems across a lifetime.