Professor of Physiology; Chair, Departments of Physiology and Experimental Cardiology, Amsterdam University Medical Center, The Netherlands
Dr Jolanda van der Velden, PhD, is Professor of Physiology, and chairs the Departments of Physiology and Experimental Cardiology at the Amsterdam University Medical Center. The main research interest of the van der Velden group is to study the role of sarcomere proteins in cardiac performance. As mutations in sarcomere proteins are a frequent cause of heart disease, research on inherited cardiomyopathies is a central research line in Amsterdam, and experiments are performed from bench to the clinic.
Expertise includes functional studies at single cardiac muscle cell and multicellular level, and mitochondrial studies in patient samples obtained during cardiac surgery and stem cell-derived heart models. Close collaboration with clinical departments allows translational research in which the functional studies in cardiac samples are combined with in vivo parameters of cardiac pump function and energetics. Moreover, methods have been developed to refine research in animal models, including high-throughput analyses of cardiomyocyte function. She coordinated the national inherited cardiac diseases consortium PRECISE funded by the Netherlands Heart Foundation, The Netherlands Organization for Sciences and Stichting Hartedroom, which aims to improve detection, risk prediction and treatment of patients with an inherited heart disease. At national level, she co-directs the Netherlands Heart Institute as scientific director.