Charles is supervised by Dr. Alex Pinto in the Cardiac Cellular Systems laboratory, at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and Prof. Grant Drummond (through La Trobe University), as well as Professor Rebecca Ritchie in the Heart Failure Pharmacology laboratory at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Charles graduated from Monash Universities Department of Pharmacology with First-Class Honours, also receiving the Alan Boura Prize for Pharmacology for the highest mark for the research component of the course. Since then he has been awarded the government funded PhD RTP stipend (formerly known as APA scholarship) through La Trobe University, and was also awarded the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute ‘Bright Sparks’ top-up scholarship soon after.

Charles’ work investigates the changes in the heart as a result of type-2 diabetes, incorporating high-dimensional flow cytometry, single-cell RNA sequencing of the heart, and confocal microscopy to characterise distinct changes in the cardiac cellular composition, before choosing a relevant pharmacotherapy.