Prof. Dr. med. Peter Kohl
Scientific Director, UHZ | Director, IEKM
Research Interests:
- Mechano-electric coupling in the cardio-vascular system
- Hetero-cellular cross-talk and roles of non-excitable cells in cardiac biophysics
- Integrated wet-and-dry studies of cardio-vascular structure and function
- Method development, imaging, auto-regulation
Brief CV:
Peter Kohl studied Medicine and Biophysics at the Moscow Pirogov Institute (1981-1987) 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 (1992). 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). In 2010, he took up the Chair in Cardiac Biophysics and Systems Biology at the Imperial College London. Since 2015, he directs the IEKM at Freiburg. Peter is a driver of integrative, interdisciplinary, and international research collaborations, with roles ranging from Founding Director of the European Network of Excellence on the Virtual Physiological Human, to Speaker of the newly established German Collaborative Research Centre SFB1425 dedicated to uncovering the Heterocellular Nature of Cardiac Lesions.
Peter is a Guest Professor in Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford.
Selected Publications:
- Cameron BA […] Greiner J […] Peyronnet R, Kohl P, Quinn TA. Disturbed repolarization-relaxation coupling during acute myocardial ischemia permits systolic mechano-arrhythmogenesis. Circ Res 2025/in press
- Lother A, Kohl P. The heterocellular heart: identities, interactions, and implications for cardiology. Basic Res Cardiol 2023/118:30
- Kohl P, Greiner J, Rog-Zielinska EA. Electron microscopy of cardiac 3D nanodynamics: form, function, future. Nat Rev Cardiol 2022/19:607-619
- Rog-Zielinska EA [...] Peyronnet R, Zgierski-Johnston CM [...] Sacconi L, Kohl P. Beat-by-Beat Cardiomyocyte T-Tubule Deformation Drives Tubular Content Exchange. Circ Res 2021/128:203-215
- Quinn TA, Kohl P. Cardiac Mechano-Electric Coupling: Acute Effects of Mechanical Stimulation on Heart Rate and Rhythm. Physiol Rev 2021/101:37–92
- Brandenburg S […] Kohl P, Rog-Zielinska EA, Lehnart SE. Junctophilin-2 expression rescues atrial dysfunction through polyadic junctional membrane complex biogenesis. JCI Insight 2019/4:e127116
- Karoutas A, Szymanski W, Rausch T, Guhathakurta S, Rog-Zielinska EA, Peyronnet R [...] Kohl P [...] Akhtar A. The NSL complex maintains nuclear architecture stability via lamin A/C acetylation. Nature Cell Biology 2019/21(10):1248-1260
- Bernal Sierra YA*, Rost BR*, Pofahl M* [...] Kopton RA [...] Kohl P [...] Schneider-Warme F [...] Schmitz D. Potassium channel-based optogenetic silencing. Nat Commun 2018/9:4611 (*shared authorship)
- Hulsmans M [...] Wülfers EM, Seemann G [...] Kohl P [...] Nahrendorf M. Macrophages Facilitate Electrical Conduction in the Heart. Cell 2017/169:510-522.e20
- Weber M, Scherf N, Meyer AM, Panáková D, Kohl P, Huisken J. Cell-accurate optical mapping across the entire developing heart. Elife 2017/6:e28307
- Gourdie RG, Dimmeler S & Kohl P. Novel therapeutic strategies targeting fibroblasts and fibrosis in heart disease. Nat Rev Drug Discov 2016/15:620-38