ProfessorPeterKohl

Summary

Until 2017, Peter Kohl held the Chair in Cardiac Biophysics and Systems Biology at NHLI. Having relocated to Germany, to set up the new institute for Experimental Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Freiburg, he is now a Visiting Professor at NHLI.

Peter studied Medicine and Biophysics at the Moscow Pirogov Institute and, after post-graduate training and research at the Berlin Charité (PhD 1990, Facharzt 1991), he joined the Cardiac Electrophysiology Chair of Professor Denis Noble at Oxford. In 1998, Peter set up the Oxford Cardiac Mechano-Electric Feedback lab, initially as a Royal Society Research Fellow, and subsequently as a Senior Fellow of the British Heart Foundation. While at Oxford, he held a Research Fellowship at Keble College (2002-2004) and was the Tutorial Fellow in Biomedical Sciences at Balliol (2004-2010).

Peter’s team enjoys a strong international reputation in cardiac mechano-electrical interaction studies, in particular as a result of their ability to cross traditional boundaries between fields (engineering, biophysics, biology, computing) and levels (ion channel to whole organ) of investigation. Building on a solid track-record in the development and application of novel techniques, they combine experiment and computation to integrate cardiac structure-function data to address clinically-relevant research targets.

Peter directs a significant portfolio of externally-funded research (supported in recent years by German Research Foundation, ERC, BHF and BBSRC), and has been a driver of international collaboration actions, such as the Network of Excellence for the EU Virtual Physiological Human Initiative whose co-founding director he was. Peter is the coordinating editor of the primary textbook on Cardiac Mechano-Electric Coupling and Arrhythmias, and chairman of the leading international workshop series on the topic.

For more detail, please see Peter's Inaugural Lecture at Imperial College, and a recent review on the Institute for Experimental Cardiovascular Medicine in Freiburg.

SELECTED publications:

Selected publications (for full list see here ):

Karoutas A et al. The NSL complex maintains nuclear architecture stability via lamin A/C acetylation. Nat Cell Biol 2019/21:1248-1260. 

Toomer KA et al. Primary cilia defects causing mitral valve prolapse. Sci Transl Med 2019/11:eaax0290. 

Brandenburg S et al. Junctophilin-2 expression rescues atrial dysfunction through polyadic junctional membrane complex biogenesis. JCI Insight 2019/4:127116.

Bernal Sierra YA et al. Potassium channel-based optogenetic silencing. Nat Commun 2018/9:4611.

Tsushima K et a. Mitochondrial Reactive Oxygen Species in Lipotoxic Hearts Induce Post-Translational Modifications of AKAP121, DRP1, and OPA1 That Promote Mitochondrial Fission. Circ Res 2018/122:58-73.

Kong CHT et al. Solute movement in the t-tubule system of rabbit and mouse cardiomyocytes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2018115:E7073-E7080.

Hulsmans M, Clauss S, Xiao L et al. Macrophages facilitate electrical conduction in the heart. Cell 2017/169:510-522.

Scardigli M, Crocini C, Ferrantini C et al. Quantitative assessment of passive electrical properties of the cardiac T-tubular system by FRAP microscopy. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2017/114:5737-5742.

Quinn TA, Camelliti P, Rog-Zielinska EA, Siedlecka U, Poggioli T, O'Toole ET, Knöpfel T & Kohl P. Electrotonic coupling of excitable and nonexcitable cells in the heart revealed by optogenetics. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2017:113:4852–14857.

Gourdie RG, Dimmeler S & Kohl P. Novel therapeutic strategies targeting fibroblasts and fibrosis in heart disease. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 2016/15: 620–638.

Brandenburg S, Kohl T, Williams G et al. Axial tubule junctions control rapid calcium signaling in atria. J Clin Invest 2016/126:3999–4015

Peyronnet R, Nerbonne JM & Kohl P. Cardiac mechano-gated ion channels and arrhythmias. Circ Res 2016/118 (2), 311-329

EA Rog-Zielinska, RA Norris, P Kohl & R Markwald. The living scar - cardiac fibroblasts and the injured heart. Trends Mol Med 2016/22:99-114.

Kohl P & Gourdie RG. Fibroblast-myocyte electrotonic coupling: Does it occur in native cardiac tissue? J Mol Cell Cardiol 2014/70:37-46.

Botcherby et al. Fast measurement of sarcomere length and cell orientation in Langendorff-perfused hearts using remote focusing microscopy. Circ Res 2013/113:863-70.

Yan et al. Palette of fluorinated voltage-sensitive hemicyanine dyes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2012/109:20443-8.

Lee et al. Simultaneous voltage and calcium mapping of genetically purified human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiac myocyte monolayers. Circ Res 2012/110:1556-63.

Bub et al. Temporal pixel multiplexing for simultaneous high-speed, high-resolution imaging. Nat Methods 2010/7:209-11.

Iribe et al. Axial stretch of rat single ventricular cardiomyocytes causes an acute and transient increase in Ca2 spark rate. Circ Res 2009/104:787-95.

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