About our department
Our research
What is the overall aim?
The mission of the department of Cardiology is to make a significant scientific contribution to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease by 25% over the next 5-10 years. We aim to achieve this by performing translational research, clinical studies and population-based research in close collaboration with (inter)national partners and patient advocacy groups focusing on the key areas ischemic cardiovascular disease, congenital or acquired structural heart disease and as final common pathways arrhythmias and heart failure.What are the focus areas of your research? (examples)
The department of Cardiology performs translational research, clinical studies, and population-based research in close collaboration with (inter)national partners and patient advocacy groups on 5 key areas: Ischemic cardiovascular disease, congenital or acquired structural heart defects, arrhythmias and heart failure.Principal Investigators
- Prof.dr. Felix Zijlstra - Head of the department
- Dr. Daphne Merkus
- Dr. Heleen van Beusekom
- Dr. Caroline Cheng
- Dr. Tamas Szili Torok
- Dr. Sing-Chien Yap
- Prof.dr. Eric Boersma
- Dr. Isabella Kardys
- Dr. Martijn Akkerhuis
- Dr. Annemien van der Bosch
- Dr. Olivier Manintveld
- Dr. Michelle Michels
- Dr. Jasper Brugts
- Prof.dr. Nicolas van Mieghem
- Prof.dr. Peter de Jaegere
- Dr. Joost Daemen
- Prof.dr. Nico de Jong
- Dr.ir. Hans Bosch
- Dr. Ali Akyildiz
Research lines
The department of Cardiology has 7 research groups which are all focused on 1 or more of the 5 key areas and are highly interconnected.
- Experimental Cardiology - PI Prof.dr. Dirk Jan Duncker
- Electrophysiology - PI Prof.dr. Natasja de Groot
- Cardiovascular Epidemiology - Prof.dr. Eric Boersma
- Congenital Cardiology - Prof.dr. Jolien Roos-Hesselink
- Intervention Cardiology - Prof.dr. Nicolas van Mieghem
- Heart Failure - PI to be appointed
- Biomedical Engineering - Prof.dr. Ton van der Steen
Projects
Facilities
- a unique experimental intervention room, allowing state of the art cardiovascular intervention studies in human-sized pigs
- facilities for cardiovascular histopathology and molecular biology research, a scanning electron microscope
- own biobanking infrastructure within the Triallab of the Clinical Chemistry department
- a fast framing digital camera for up to 25 Million frames per seconds, which can be linked to a confocal microscope
- two optical labs, an ultrasound lab, facilities for MALDI imaging and a lab for cell culturing
- CUBE research facility for functional ultrasound brain imaging
Collaborations
- Many departments in the Erasmus MC
- The 16 Cardiovascular ACEs
- Dutch Cardiovascular Alliance
- TU Delft
- Netherlands Heart Institute