Daniël A. Pijnappels, PhD

Daniël Pijnappels is professor of cellular electrophysiology, head of the Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology and focusing on interdisciplinary translational cardiology.

He received his PhD with honors from Leiden University in 2009, and established the Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology in 2011 to develop an integrative research approach covering various aspects of biology, physics, engineering and medicine. He was appointed full professor in 2022. With this approach, his group aims for a sustainable and comprehensive improvement in the prospects of human cardiac health by addressing the (unanswered) needs in understanding and therapy through the creation of new biology (i.e. synthetic biomedicine) and its integration with emerging technologies. One main aim is to develop biological therapies for cardiac diseases, allowing the heart itself to detect and neutralize physiological disturbances, which in case of cardiac arrhythmias involves the creation of a Biologically-Integrated Cardiac Defibrillator (or BioICD).

To address these aims, the lab houses an international team (>15 different nationalities since 2011) consisting of biologists, physicians, engineers and physicists. As a result, the research projects have both a strong interdisciplinary and translational focus by combining (human) computer modeling with in vitro/vivo modeling, genetic engineering (e.g. optogenetics and immortogenetics) and microelectronic engineering. Also, different national and international collaborations (including a long-term collaboration with the Delft University of Technology) have been established to not only further advance the research, but also the create an optimal environment for next generations of professionals to train and flourish.

Young Daniel2

He has received funding from, among others, the ERC (2015 StG, 2021 CoG), ZonMw (2010 Veni, 2013 Vidi), the Dutch Heart Foundation, KNAW and Ammodo.

Please see the overview of scientific publications for more info about his work.

Email: D.A.Pijnappels@lumc.nl

For more info about how to contact Dr. Pijnappels, please visit the contact page.