Thomas Eschenhagen, MD serves as DiNAQOR’s Chief Scientific Advisor and serves on the company’s Scientific Advisory Board. He is Professor of Pharmacology and Director of the Department of Experimental Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, Germany and, since 2011, Speaker of the German Centre of Cardiovascular Research (DZHK).
Dr. Eschenhagen pioneered the engineered heart tissue (EHT) technology in 1994, which, in combination with human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes, provides a medium throughput assay for drug testing and hiPSC-based disease modeling. The development of the latter application is supported by an ERC Advanced Grant since 2014. Pluripotent stem cell-derived EHTs were shown to repair infarcted (guinea pig) hearts, and current efforts of the group are directed towards clinical translation of this approach. He has published more than 280 full papers and 30 reviews or chapters in leading textbooks which includes more than 13,500 citations.
He is a member of the German Academy of Science Leopoldina (2008) and the Past-President of the International Society for Heart Research (2019-2022).