Short Curriculum Vitae
Paul Volders, MD, PhD, FESC is Cardiologist and Principal Investigator at Maastricht University Medical Centre, The Netherlands. He is a clinician-scientist with a focus on translational cardiology. He coordinates the cardiogenetic care of patients with inherited heart disease, notably inherited arrhythmias and structural cardiomyopathies. Within this clinical-experimental environment he leads an active research program to gain novel pathogenic insights in ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.
Dr. Volders received his BSc (1992), MD (1997) and PhD (1999) from Maastricht University, The Netherlands. In 1993 and 1994 he spent a research fellowship at the Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Section, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Oklahoma City, USA. Thereafter, he improved his scientific skills further at the Laboratory of Physiology, University of Leuven, Belgium (1994-1995). On the basis of his PhD work, Volders received the Young Investigator Award of the Herman Snellen Foundation, Leiden, The Netherlands (1999), the prestigious Young Investigator Award of Heart Rhythm Society (Toronto, Canada, 1999), the Sanofi Synthélabo Dissertation Cardiology Prize (Second Prize) of the Netherlands Society of Cardiology (The Hague, 2000), and the SNS Bank Limburg Award for best PhD thesis of Maastricht University (2001).
Dr. Volders combined his training in Clinical Cardiology with a postdoctoral research position at Maastricht University Medical Centre. In this period, he spent another research fellowship at the University of Leuven, Belgium (2000-2001). In 2008, he became a staff member at the Department of Cardiology in Maastricht.
He is a member of several scientific organizations and has been a reviewer for numerous granting organizations and journals. He was chosen as best grant reviewer of the Netherlands Heart Foundation in 2003-2004.
Currently, Dr. Volders is Chairman of the ESC Working Group on Cardiac Cellular Electrophysiology and the Working-Group’s Representative at the Board of the ESC Heart Rhythm Association.
As Principal Investigator, he leads a team of 10 people with a special interest in translational cardiology, notably ventricular arrhythmogenesis and sudden cardiac death. He has coached 4 PhD candidates to their doctorate, and currently supervises numerous other postdoctoral and PhD projects. To date, Volders is first or co-author on >70 peer-reviewed original papers, reviews and book chapters.
Current Research
Traditionally, the Volders team has focused on the electrophysiological characterization of arrhythmia substrates in inherited channelopathies and cardiomyopathies, and acquired cardiac overload. While these studies continue at the cellular, intact-animal and patient level, increasing research activities are directed to:
(1) intracellular signaling pathways determining ion-channel function;
(2) the genetic and genomic basis of cardiac arrhythmias; and
(3) systems biology to integrate the basic molecular and functional determinants of arrhythmia syndromes with the clinical characteristics of individual patients, in order to provide better risk management and treatment.
Recent Papers
1.Volders PGA. Novel insights into the role of the sympathetic nervous system in cardiac arrhythmogenesis. Heart Rhythm. 2010;7:1900-1906.
2.Heijman J, Spätjens RLHMG, Seyen SRM, Lentink V, Kuijpers HJH, Boulet IR, de Windt LJ, David M, Volders PGA. Dominant-negative control of cAMP-dependent IKs upregulation in human long-QT syndrome type 1. Circ Res. 2012;110:211-219.
3.ter Bekke RMA, Volders PGA. Arrhythmogenic mechano-electric heterogeneity in the long-QT syndrome. Progr Biophys Mol Biol. 2012;110:347-358.
4.Johnson DM, Heijman J, Bode EF, Greensmith DJ, van der Linde H, Abi-Gerges N, Eisner DA, Trafford AW, Volders PGA. Diastolic spontaneous calcium release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum increases beat-to-beat variability of repolarization in canine ventricular myocytes after β-adrenergic stimulation. Circ Res. 2013;112:246-256.
5.Heijman J, Zaza A, Johnson DM, Rudy Y, Peeters RLM, *Volders PGA, Westra RL (*shared senior authorship). Determinants of beat-to-beat variability of repolarization duration in the canine ventricular myocyte: a computational analysis. PLoS Comput Biol. 2013;9:e1003202.
6.Schwartz PJ, Volders PGA. Sudden death by stress: how far under the nerves should we dig to find out why LQT1 patients die? J Am Coll Cardiol. 2013; in press.
Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Calle del Arzobispo Morcillo 4. 28029 Madrid. Tel. +34 91 497 54 86 Fax. 91 497 53 53. Email. informacion.medicina@uam.es
