prof.dr. D.A. Pijnappels

Expertise: Interdisciplinary translational cardiology

Daniël A. Pijnappels is Medical delta professor of Cardiovascular detector-effector technology at TU Delft. He is also professor of Cellular electrophysiology and head of the Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology at Leiden University Medical Center.

He received his PhD with honours from Leiden University in 2009 and, in 2011, established the Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology to develop an integrative research approach covering various aspects of biology, physics, engineering and medicine. This approach was inspired by the inherently interdisciplinary nature of the heart. He was appointed full professor in 2022. With this approach, his group aims for a sustainable and comprehensive improvement in the prospects for human cardiac health by addressing the unmet needs in understanding and therapy through the creation of new biology (i.e. synthetic biomedicine) and its integration with emerging technologies. His group focuses particularly on cardiac arrhythmias and damage.

To achieve 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. Much of the engineering centres on optogenetics, with customized optoelectronic systems and devices designed, developed and applied for (translational) research purposes. To facilitate all of this, the different disciplines are integrated through dedicated, interconnected laboratories, including a Tech lab for engineering and Sim lab for computer modelling, with the clinical domain (e.g. operation rooms for interventions) adjacent to these labs.

He has received funding from, among others, the European Research Council (ERC 2015 StG, 2021 CoG), The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw 2010 Veni, 2013 Vidi), the Dutch Heart Foundation, and Ammodo. In addition, he and his team have received multiple awards (>50) for their work, including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the from the Council for Basic Cardiovascular Science (European Society of Cardiology), Pearl Award (Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development), and multiple Young Investigator Awards at all major cardiology and electrophysiology conferences.

Last updated: 29 Sep 2025