Coert J Zuurbier

Following obtaining my master degree in Biology at the University of Wageningen, I pursued a PhD in skeletal muscle biomechanics at the Human Movement Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit at Amsterdam. This was followed by a post-doc at 1) the department of Physiology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, directed at mitochondrial function within stunned myocardium, and 2) the Bioengineering department of the University of Washington, Seattle, directed at cardiac models of oxygen transport. Then I was able to obtain a solid position at the University of Amsterdam, department of Anesthesiology, to start my own research group. My laboratory’s long term research goals are to: 1) elucidate molecular and physiological mechanisms of cell death and dysfunction and vascular damage in the heart that contribute to the pathology of ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury, heart failure, stress hyperglycemia and diabetes, and 2) develop clinical relevant strategies to combat cardiac cell death and vascular damage in the setting of acute I/R, stress hyperglycemia, heart failure, diabetes. Important contributions from our group to the field entail the role of glycocalyx in diabetes and hyperglycemia, mitochondria-hexokinase binding role in cardiac infarction, diabetes and cardioprotection, and 3) unraveling the direct cardiac effects of the “statins of the 21th century”, the SGLT2 inhibitors.