Dierk Thomas, associate professor in the Depart­ment of Cardiology at the University of Heidel­berg, grew up near Hamburg, Germany, a city known as “Germany’s Gateway to the World,” because of its history as one of the busiest ports in Europe. Thomas notes that this bustling city, “shapes a broad horizon and uniquely promotes openness to new perspectives. I enjoyed the time [there] as a child a lot.” His parents, an engineer and a school teacher, passed on a scientific per­spective to their son, who decided he wanted to be a medical doctor when he grew up. “I thought that being a physician would be the most mean­ingful and rewarding application of science,” he says.

He pursued his doctor of medicine degree at Hei­delberg University Medical School, and during a physiology class, he began to think that work­ing on ion channels provided the opportunity to identify regulatory mechanisms in the heart and the other organs that could then be therapeuti­cally targeted. “The professor, Johann Caspar Rüegg, realized that biomedical science requires clinical application, and I agreed,” Thomas says. “He recommended joining the group of Johann Kiehn at the cardiology department as a doctoral student. Thus, with the support of both Johanns, my career in cardiac electrophysiology began.”

While in medical school, Thomas spent six months in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics of Case Western Reserve University. In the lab of Arthur Brown, he studied regulation of cardiac delayed rectifier potassium channels, publishing several articles on the topic during his time there. “In Dr. Brown’s group in Cleveland, Eckhard Ficker, who sadly passed away much too early, introduced me not only to cellular mecha­nisms of cardiac arrhythmia, but also to Major League Baseball, which I have enjoyed ever since,” Thomas says.

After earning his MD and completing his doc­toral thesis work on the role of human ether-a-go-go-related gene potassium channels in the heart, he continued as an active physician-scientist dur­ing his residency at the University of Heidelberg. He then worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago from 2004 to 2007 in the lab of Steve Goldstein. “I investigated function and regulation of two-pore-domain ion channels,” Thomas says. “My passion for baseball, too, grew further during those years in the ‘windy city.’”

He returned to Heidelberg in 2007 to continue his scientific career in molecular and translational cardiac electrophysiology. He completed a clinical fellowship and became an independent research group leader, first as an assistant professor, and later associate professor.

Working as both a physician and a scientist has been the biggest challenge in Thomas’s career, but has also been most rewarding. “Being able to provide excellent patient care and cutting edge science requires a great team of highly motivated members that I am proud to be a part of,” he says. “With the enthusiastic personal commitment of physicians and scientists, we are in a position where we can treat patients in the electrophysiol­ogy operating room and shed more light on mo­lecular mechanisms leading to their heart rhythm disorders at the same time. It is definitely most rewarding to bring together scientific discoveries and clinical findings, providing novel avenues for therapeutic intervention that ultimately improve patient care.”

Thomas’s colleague Jules Hancox, professor of car­diac electrophysiology at the University of Bristol, met him at a conference and was impressed with his presentation. “He and his colleagues had probed protein kinase modulation of the hERG potassium channel, in elegant work that included heroically mutating out all the PKA phosphoryla­tion sites,” she recalls. They have seldom worked together, following complementary tracks in their research, but recently collaborated on a review and evaluation of potential novel cardiac ion channel targets for treatment of atrial fibrilla­tion that goes beyond the usual suspects. Hancox admires Thomas’s balancing research and patient care. “I never cease to be impressed by how he manages to combine outstanding science with substantial clinical responsibilities,” she says. “He is incredibly effective.”

Thomas admires his patients who agree to partici­pate in clinical and molecular studies. “Without their generous and most personal contribution we would not be able to pursue patient-focused science the way we are today,” he says. “Most of the time that I am not doing science in my lab is dedicated to patient care—which constantly generates new ideas for science, of course.”

“Biophysics is capable of providing precise and specific explanations for disease phenotypes in cardiovascular medicine. This is particularly true for inherited arrhythmia syndromes that may predispose to life-threatening arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death,” Thomas says. “Biophysical studies have contributed significantly to character­izing specific inherited arrhythmias, to analyzing their underlying cause and mechanism, and to developing specific treatment strategies. Indeed, dysfunctional ion channels underlying inherited arrhythmias would not have been discovered without biophysics—and this is just one example of many in cardiac electrophysiology.”

Going forward in his career, Thomas plans to continue working in both clinical and research environments. “Working at the interface between biophysical science and patient care together with my team, I hope to contribute significant mecha­nistic insights into cardiac arrhythmogenesis that translate into optimized antiarrhythmic therapy,” he shares. “Within the biophysical community I will continue to promote the inclusion of clini­cal disciplines into scientific efforts, to guide and advance scientific knowledge for the long-term benefit of humans.”