Peter Kohl is a German scientist specializing in integrative cardiac research. He studies heterocellular electrophysiological interactions in cardiac tissue, myocardial structure-function relationships using 'wet' and 'dry' lab models, and mechano-electrical autoregulation of the heart.

Education

Kohl studied

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

and

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

before completing his doctorate and his residency in

physiology Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...

at the

Humboldt University The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public university, public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III of Prussia, Frederick W ...

in Berlin. Supported by a scholarship from th
Boehringer-Ingelheim Foundation
he went as a post-doctoral researcher to the chair of Prof. Denis Noble, Department of Physiology at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, where - using a combination of experimental and theoretical models - he explored cardiac mechanobiology and heterocellular interactions.

Career

Supported by personal fellowships from the UK

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and the

British Heart Foundation The British Heart Foundation (BHF) is a cardiovascular research charity in the United Kingdom. It funds medical research related to heart and circulatory diseases and their risk factors, and runs influencing work aimed at shaping public policy ...

, he founded the Cardiac Mechano-Electric Feedback Lab at Oxford. Work from this time ranged from the mechanistic explanation of the Bainbridge effect (mechanically induced increase in heart rate) in isolated

pacemaker cell 350px, Image showing the cardiac pacemaker or SA node, the primary pacemaker within the electrical conduction system of the heart The cardiac pacemaker is the heart's natural rhythm generator. It employs pacemaker Cell (biology), cells that ...

s stretched during

patch clamp The patch clamp technique is a laboratory technique in electrophysiology used to study ionic currents in individual Cell isolation, isolated living cells, tissue sections, or patches of cell membrane. The technique is especially useful in the st ...

measurements with carbon fibres, the description of a stretch-induced increase in calcium release from the

sarcoplasmic reticulum The sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) is a membrane-bound structure found within muscle cells that is similar to the smooth endoplasmic reticulum in other cells. The main function of the SR is to store calcium ions (Ca2+). Calcium ion levels are kep ...

as a mechanism contributing to the

Frank–Starling law The Frank–Starling law of the heart (also known as Starling's law and the Frank–Starling mechanism) represents the relationship between stroke volume and end diastolic volume.Widmaier, E. P., Hershel, R., & Strang, K. T. (2016).''Vander's ...

, to the exploration of direct electrical coupling of cardiac

fibroblast A fibroblast is a type of cell (biology), biological cell typically with a spindle shape that synthesizes the extracellular matrix and collagen, produces the structural framework (Stroma (tissue), stroma) for animal Tissue (biology), tissues, and ...

s and muscle cells. After two decades of research and teaching at Oxford, Kohl was appointed Inaugural Chair in Cardiac Biophysics and Systems Biology at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

. Work during this time, funded by th
ERC Advanced Grant CardioNECT
focused on the development and use of novel

optogenetic Optogenetics is a biological technique to control the activity of neurons or other cell types with light. This is achieved by expression of light-sensitive ion channels, pumps or enzymes specifically in the target cells. On the level of individ ...

and fluorometric techniques, resulting in the first functional demonstration of heterocellular electrical cell coupling in native heart tissue. After five years in London, Kohl was recruited to

Freiburg University The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...

in 2016 as the founding director of the Institute for Experimental Cardiovascular Medicine (IEKM). The English-language IEKM is structured with flat hierarchies and a broad interdisciplinary profile. About 40% of staff are from outside Germany, with scientific backgrounds in physiology, pharmacology, medicine, biology, physics, engineering and mathematics. The institute has grown from 6 to almost 60 staff and students in just a few years, established a novel

biobank A biobank is a type of biorepository that stores biological samples (usually human) for use in research. Biobanks have become an important resource in medical research, supporting many types of contemporary research like genomics and personalized ...

concept (in which functional data collected on live human tissue are an integral part of the biobank), and it is committed to teaching in small group formats such as the new 1-year internationa
MSc in Medical Sciences - Cardiovascular Research
with an annual intake of no more than 6 pre-PhD students.

Honours

Kohl is a visiting professor at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London. He served as co-founding director (with Peter Coveney,

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

) of the

Virtual Physiological Human The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) is a European initiative that focuses on a methodological and technological framework that, once established, will enable collaborative investigation of the human body as a single complex system. The collective ...

Network of Excellence (VPH NoE) and he was the Speaker of the German national collaborative research centre SFB1425 'Make Better Scars'. From 2018 to 2020, Kohl was joint Editor-in-Chief (with Denis Noble and

Tom Blundell Sir Thomas Leon Blundell, (born 7 July 1942) is a British biochemist, structural biologist, and science administrator. He was a member of the team of Dorothy Hodgkin that solved in 1969 the first structure of a protein hormone, insulin. Blun ...

) of ''

Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology ''Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing review articles in the fields of biophysics and molecular biology. It was established in 1950 as ''Progress in Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry'' ...

'', and from 2022 to 2023, he was Editor-in-Chief of ''

The Journal of Physiology ''The Journal of Physiology'' is a semi-monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1878 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The Physiological Society. It covers research on all aspects of physiology, with an emp ...

.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kohl, Peter Living people German physiologists Academics of the University of Oxford Academics of Imperial College London Academic staff of the University of Freiburg Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford 1962 births