Peter Kohl heads up the Cardiac Biophysics and Systems Biology group at Imperial which tackles heart science issues at various scales.
The fact that the heart can continue to beat once taken out of the body, for example during transplantation is quite amazing really.
“One of the things we like to do is to study behaviour across multiple spatial scales, from isolated cells to tissue and organ levels. The challenge lies in trying to relate what we learn from say studying a single ion channel in a cell to an ECG recording in a patient – it is not a trivial task.”
“If we are looking at a voltage signal, we assume that signal comes entirely from the myocytes – but that’s not necessarily the case.”
In particular fibroblasts are generating a lot of interest in the context of scars. This includes scars that are caused by myocardial infarction (heart attacks), or applied as a therapeutic measure in patients with pre-existing atrial fibrillation (AF).
“One possible explanation is that the connective tissue in these scars starts to act as a conductor. That was previously seen as unthinkable by many in the field, but the evidence in favour is starting to look quite compelling.”
“If we could only make scars left after a heart attack slightly less dangerous and scary than they are now – that would be a good thing!”
Peter was recently awarded €2.5m from the European Research Council’s Advanced Grants fund, while other projects in the group are supported by the British Heart Foundation, Research Councils UK, the European Commission and the Magdi Yacoub Institute.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_9-4-2013-14-17-44
