Researchers

Carlos Afonso

Carlos Afonso is currently in the first year of his DPhil in Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Dr. Vicente Grau (Oxford) and Prof. Peter Kohl (Imperial), and he will be a visiting researcher at the Harefield Heart Science Centre.

Carlos has an MSc in Physics Engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico - Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (2008). His Master thesis was on "Primordial Gravitational Waves in Loop Quantum Cosmology (a semi-classical approach)", under the supervision of Prof. Alfredo Barbosa Henriques (Instituto Superior Técnico), in collaboration with Prof. Paulo Vargas Moniz (Universidade da Beira Interior). This work was presented in two oral communications: at IBERICOS (Lisboa, 2008) and the PASC winter school (Sesimbra, 2007).

In 2008, Carlos was awarded a fellowship for the PhD Program in Computational Biology, supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Siemens Portugal, and FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. This PhD programme consists on one year of doctoral training at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science, followed by three years PhD thesis research in an internationally recognised laboratory. In 2009, after finishing the first year doctoral training, he joined Prof. Peter Kohl's and Dr. Vicente Grau's groups at the University of Oxford.

Carlos's DPhil project is on chronic Atrial Fibrillation, and studies the relations between the 3D tissue structure and the electro-physiology patterns, using high-resolution MRI and serial histology, combined with electrophysiological mapping data obtained by collaborators at Professor Uli Schotten’s lab in Maastricht. The work involves image acquisition and analysis, and mathematical and computational modelling.

Christian Bollensdorff

Dr Christian Bollensdorff will join the Cardiac Biophysics group at the Harefield  Heart Science Centre from January 2011.

Christian studied Biophysics at the Humboldt-University Berlin, concluding it with a Diploma in Biophysics (MA) in 1998. He obtained his PhD from the University of Jena in 2003, working with Professor Klaus Benndorf on the electrophysiological characterisation of ATP-dependent potassium channels. Thereafter, he joined the Cardiac Mechano-Electric Feedback group of Dr Peter Kohl at the University of Oxford, initially as a post-doctoral research scientist, and now a Senior Research Fellow directing a British Heart Foundation supported research project.

Christian is an established specialist in low-noise patch-clamp investigations, and his research is focussed mainly at the electrophysiological characterisation of myocardial cells and tissue during defined micro-mechanical perturbations. In addition, he uses advanced imaging approaches, both to for feed-forward and fee-back motion tracking, and for florescence-based measurements of membrane potentials and ion concentrations.

Christian is a devoted team player, offering hands-on support to a wide range of other projects. Time permitting, he enjoys nature, wildlife, and bird-watching.

Gil Bub

Dr Gil Bub is a Visiting Senior Fellow with the Cardiac Biophysics group at the Harefield Heart Science Centre.

Gil studied physiology and physics at McGill University with Leon Glass and Alvin Shrier, receiving a PhD in 2000 for his discovery of reentrant spiral waves cardiac monolayers using fluorescent mapping techniques. He then took a position as an associate professor in SUNY Downstate Medical Centre (Brooklyn, New York), working with Dr. El-Sherif on voltage-calcium uncoupling during ischemia. In 2006, he joined the Cardiac Mechano-Electric Feedback group of Dr Peter Kohl at the University of Oxford.

Gil is an established expert in high speed optical mapping techniques and mesoscopic models of excitable tissues. As a director of a BBSRC Technology Development Research Initiative project, he is also heavily involved in method development to combine high-speed and high-resolution imaging on single chip designs. His work on Temporal Pixel Multiplexing, published in Nature Methods, was widely featured in popular media outlets, from New Scientist and the Telegraph, to Wired and Metro. Gill is about to embark on an MRC ‘Discipline Hopping Grant’ to pursue instrument miniaturisation and chip design, collaborating with the teams of Mark Pitter and Mike Somekh  at the University of Nottingham.

Rebecca Burton

Dr Rebecca Burton works with the Cardiac Biophysics Group at the Harefield Heart Science Centre.

Rebecca obtained an MA in Pharmacology and Biotechnology from Sheffield Hallam University (2003), before she joined the Oxford Cardiac Mechano-Electric Feedback Group of Dr Kohl as a Lab Manager and Research Assistant. Remaining with the same team, she was awarded one of the coveted Oxford Overseas Research Scholarships to support he studies towards a DPhil in Cardiac Physiology (completed 2010). In parallel, Rebecca completed a distant learning MBA, with Merit, at Oxford Brookes (2008).

Rebecca’s research is focused on developing histo-anatomically detailed (resolution 1 µm) reconstructions of whole mammalian hearts, to support individualised structure-function modelling. She is also interested in the functional relevance of ‘forgotten’ anatomical insight, such as an ‘additional’ right coronary artery whose prevalence in humans and rabbits may need reassessing.

Rebecca recently won the Pfizer Prize at the Physiological Society Main Meeting in Manchester (2010) for her studies into 3D histoanatomical reconstruction of the heart: rediscovering the third coronary artery. Her long-term aspirations are focussed on a career in academia which combines cardiac research, using interdisciplinary approaches, with undergraduate teaching.

Ramón Casero

Dr Ramón Casero is a Visiting Fellow with the Cardiac Biophysics and Systems Biology chair at the Harefield Heart Science Centre.

Ramón received his BSc and MSc (Hons) in Telecommunication Engineering from Universidad Carlos III of Madrid in 2003. During his undergraduate studies, Ramón spent the academic year 1999/2000 at the Institute for Information Processing and Microprocessor Technology at the Johannes Kepler Universität in Linz, Austria, on an Erasmus scholarship under supervision of Prof. Jörg Mühlbacher.

For his DPhil (PhD) studies, Ramón joined the Medical Image Processing group of Prof. Alison Noble at the Wolfson Medical Vision Laboratory Oxford. In collaboration with Prof. Harald Becher and Dr. Jon Timperley of the Cardiology Department at the John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford, he investigated left ventricular function in 2D+time contrast echocardiography, developing an atlas-based deformable template as a modelling framework.

For the last two years of his DPhil, Ramón also worked part-time as Development Officer for ‘OSS Watch’, the national advisory service for open source software in Further and Higher Education, where he was in charge of the UK-wide National Software Survey 2008.

After completion of his DPhil studies in 2008, Ramón started working as a post doctoral Research Assistant with the Computational Biology Group at Oxford, working of projects related to 3D histologically-detailed reconstruction of individual hearts (directed by Drs. Peter Kohl, Jürgen Schneider and David Gavaghan), and on computational prediction of drug cardiac toxicity (directed by Drs. Blanca Rodríguez and Vicente Grau). His main goal for future research is to merge these strands of investigations and build a histo-anatomically representative model of the human hearts to perform electrophysiological simulations on possible causes of drug-induced cardio-toxicity.

Katherine Fletcher

Mrs Katherine Fletcher is a Senior Project Manager and will be joining the Harefield Heart Science Centre from January 2011. 

Katherine received a BA in International Relations from William Jewell College (Liberty, Missouri, USA; 2001), and an MA in Global Political Economy from the University of Sussex (2004). She oversees scientific, administrative and financial management of collaborative research projects involving Peter Kohl’s research group.

Katherine is the Coordinator of the EU Framework 7 preDiCT project, which is part of the Virtual Physiological Human initiative (€4.1 million, 2007-2011). The preDiCT team consists of academic and industry groups, linking the University of Oxford, Aureus Pharma, CRS4 in Sardinia, Fujitsu Laboratores of Europe, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Roche, the University of Szeged and Valencia Polytechnic University. Linked sub-projects involve Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Gilead.  preDiCT uses computer modelling to predict, from ion channel screening data, how compounds affect cardiac electrophysiology, including the ECG QT interval (a key regulatory criterion). The project aims to identify better biomarkers for cardio-toxicity, to improve drug development and safety screening. As one of her functions, Katherine edits the preDiCT newsletter. 

Katherine further coordinates Oxford University’s participation in the Virtual Physiological Human Network of Excellence (14 core partners, €8.1 million, 2007-2012), and she manages the involvement of the lab in several smaller UK-funded research projects.

Alan Garny

Dr Alan Garny is a Visiting Senior Researcher with the Cardiac Biophysics group of Professor Kohl at the Harefield Heart Science Centre.

Alan studied software engineering both in France (DipEng, SUPINFO, 1994) and in Scotland (MSc, Napier University, 1995), before joining the group of Prof. Denis Noble at the University of Oxford as a software engineer (1996). He did his DPhil under the supervision of Prof. Denis Noble (Oxford), Prof. Peter J. Hunter (Auckland) and Dr Peter Kohl (Oxford). He defended his work on advanced computer models of the origin and spread of cardiac excitation in 2004 at the University of Oxford. Alan has since been a member of the Cardiac Mechano-Electric Feedback group of Dr Peter Kohl at the same institution.

Alan’s expertise includes cardiac electrophysiological modelling, from single cell to tissue level (with a particular interest in pacemaker activity, mechano-electric feedback and early after-depolarisation), and the development of cardiac modelling tools (e.g. he is the author of COR, the first CellML-based environment ever to be released). He is currently the project manager and lead developer for OpenCell. He also has a strong and long standing collaboration with the group of Prof. Peter Hunter at the University of Auckland, which he visits regularly.

Tobias Hannes

Tobias is a DPhil student in the Biomedical Imaging Network at the University of Oxford and a Visiting Student at the Cardiac Biophysics group of Professor Peter Kohl.

He studied Medicine at the University of Cologne and worked from 2006-2010 with Prof Konrad Brockmeier at the Department of Paediatric Cardiology, Cologne Heart Center, on electrophysiological properties of pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, exploring their integration with heart tissue. During this time, he has become an expert in cell electrophysiology investigations, using patch clamp and microscopy-based approaches

Co-supervised by Professor Andreas Hoenger, University of Colorado, Tobias works on electron-microscopic tomography based three-dimensional reconstruction of cardiomyocyte sarcomeres, to link molecular level knowledge on cardiac calcium handling with cellular behaviour, observed during challenges such as hypoxia, hyperkalemia, or stretch.

Honghua Jin

 

Honghua Jin will join the Harefield Heart Science Centre as a post-doctoral Scientist, from January 2011.

Dr Jin studied Pharmacy at Yanbian University, China (1989-1996) and received her PhD from Okayama University, Japan, for work on the role of stretch-activated ion channel on mechanical induction of acute arrhythmias (2006-2009). 

After a brief post-doctoral research period in Cardiovascular Physiology at Okayama University, Dr Jin joined Dr Alex Quinn in Prof Peter Kohl’s Mechano-Electric Feedback group at Oxford University in 2010, to conduct research on the interrelation of global and local mechanical stimuli in mechanical induction of heart rhythm changes. She will continue these investigations at Imperial College.

Peter Lee

Mr. Peter Lee will join the Cardiac Biophysics group at the Harefield Heart Science Centre as a visiting scientist from January 2011. 

Peter studied Engineering Science as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, obtaining a B.A.Sc. in 2001. Starting in 2000, he conducted biotechnology research at the Robotics and Automation Laboratory of Professor Andrew Goldenberg at the University of Toronto, and worked as an engineer at Engineering Services Inc. (ESI). He obtained his S.M. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005, working with Dr. Matthew Lang on single molecule instrumentation in the Biological Engineering Department of MIT, and on genome sequencing instrumentation in the Genetics Department of Professor George Church at Harvard University. After working as an education director and mathematics & science teacher at the Essel Learning Centre in Toronto, he joined the Oxford Cardiac Mechano-Electric Feedback group of Professor Peter Kohl.

Peter has been awarded one of the coveted Clarendon Research Fellowships for his work towards a DPhil at the University of Oxford. His current research is focussed on the development of optical and robotic technologies to study the electro-mechanical properties of cardiac tissue, from single cells to the whole heart. His further interests include educational material development at the elementary and secondary school level, and the development of cost-effective automation systems for biological research.

Gary Mirams

Dr Gary Mirams works as a Visiting Scientist with the Cardiac Biophysics Group at the Harefield Heart Science Centre.

Gary has a background in mathematics and its application to problems in the life sciences. He studied Mathematics with Engineering at Nottingham University, before attending the Life Science Interface doctoral training centre at Oxford, from 2004. After completing his PhD on the subject of modelling colorectal cancer initiation in 2008, supervised by Helen Byrne and John King, he moved to Peter Kohl’s lab to work on an EC-funded project aimed to preDiCT drug-induced cardiac toxicity.

Gary’s research currently concentrates on incorporating drug effects into models of the electrical behaviour of single cardiac myocytes. Based on experimental information from the early pharmaceutical drug development process, he develops tools to improve prediction of the likelihood that a drug may cause adverse cardiac effects in a human clinical setting.

As part of his research Gary is involved with the development of the Chaste cardiac simulation package by the Computational Biology Group at Oxford University.

Alex Quinn

Dr Alex Quinn is joining the Harefield Heart Science Centre from January 2011 as part of the Cardiac Biophysics and Systems Biology group, headed by Prof Peter Kohl.

Alex studied Physiology and Physics at McGill University (1996-2000). During this time, he investigated white blood cell adhesion in the laboratory of Prof Harry Goldsmith at the Montreal General Hospital Research Institute. His graduate research was based at the Biomedical Engineering Department of Columbia University New York (2001-2008), both with Prof Jeffrey Holmes’ Cardiac Biomechanics Group and Prof Henry Spotnitz’ team at the Department of Surgery. Alex developed techniques to optimise biventricular pacing as a then novel therapy for acute cardiac dysfunction, and investigated changes in ventricular mechanical function after corrective surgery for congenital heart defects. In 2008 he won one of the coveted Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships, and joined Professor Peter Kohl’s Mechano-Electric Feedback at Oxford. His research is focused on the effect of the mechanical environment on heart rhythm, in particular in the context of arrhythmia induction, for which he has been awarded a Project Grant by the British Heart Foundation.

Alex combines a strong background in biomedical, mathematical, and physical sciences with extensive exposure to clinical research. His work exemplifies the translational approach, involving multi-scale and multi-modal techniques that include direct iteration between engineering-based experimentation and advanced computational modelling. He maintains a well-developed network of international collaborators and servers as a reviewer for international journals and funding bodies. He will retain connections to Oxford, both as a Fulford Junior Research Fellow in the Medical Sciences at Somerville College (2010-now) and as an Affiliated Fellow of the Oxford Computing Laboratory (2010-now), where he is supervising several PhD Projects in the Life Sciences Interface Doctoral Training Centre.

Ken Wang

Ken Wang is a 1st year DPhil student at Oxford University Computing Laboratory, supervised by Professors Peter Kohl (Imperial) and David Gavaghan (Oxford), and she will be a visiting researcher at the Harefield Heart Science Centre.

Ken graduated with a BA in Mathematics from the University of Oxford (2009). She joined the Oxford Systems Biology Doctoral Training Centre, where she completed an intensive 12 months doctoral training curriculum. As part of this course, she spent three months each on two research projects. For the first, Ken developed a minimum model for the L-type Ca2+ current (supervised by Dr’s Ania Sher and Denis Noble). This work was presented at the MEC2010 International Workshop as a poster. Her second project investigated effects of Blebbistatin on cardiac action potential duration, using the patch clamp technique (supervised by Dr’s Christian Bollensdorff and Peter Kohl). 

Ken’s DPhil project is aimed at developing a spatially-resolved representation of sarcomeric membrane structures with nano-metre accuracy, for incorporation into computational models of cardiac electro-mechanical coupling. The project includes reconstruction of three-dimensional (3D) sarcomeric membrane structures from electron microscopic tomography data, the development of a 3D mathematical model of a sarcomere, integration with existing models of cardiomyocyte electro-physiology, use of this new model to identify experimentally testable hypotheses and, finally, experimental validation.