Metvin Avkiran

Metin Avkiran
King's College London
London, UK

Professor Metin Avkiran obtained a BSc Hons in Pharmacology (1983) and a PhD in Cardiovascular Pharmacology (1987) from the University of Bath, United Kingdom. In 2002, he was awarded a DSc by the same University, in recognition of his published research on the cardiac Na+/H+ exchanger. Professor Avkiran has held various research and academic appointments at the United Medical and Dental School of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals and subsequently King's College London since 1987, including a 10-year Basic Science Lectureship/Senior Lectureship Award from the British Heart Foundation. He was appointed as Professor of Molecular Cardiology at King's College London in 2001, where he is also the Deputy Head of the Cardiovascular Division.

Professor Avkiran is currently the President-Elect of the International Society for Heart Research (ISHR), which he has served previously as Secretary General (2004-2010). He has also served as the Secretary (1996-1998) and Chairman (2000-2002) of the British Society for Cardiovascular Research (BSCR), as a member of the ISHR European Section Council (1995-2001) and the ISHR World Council (2001-2004), and as the Chairman of the Myocardial Biology Panel of the British Cardiac Society (BCS). In 2000, he was the recipient of the Pfizer Award in Biology and an invited member of the National Institutes of Health (USA) Panel on Myocardial Resuscitation. He is currently a Consulting Editor for the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology and Cardiovascular Research, and serves on the Editorial Boards of Basic Research in Cardiology and Dialogues in Cardiovascular Medicine. He has previously served as an Associate Editor of Cardiovascular Research (1991-1995) and Pharmacology & Therapeutics (2001-2005) and on the Editorial Boards of Circulation (2000-2004) and the British Journal of Pharmacology (2002-2005). Professor Avkiran was Chairman of the Scientific Programme Committee for the XIX World Congress of the ISHR in Bologna, Italy (2007) and the XX World Congress of the ISHR in Kyoto, Japan (2010).

Professor Avkiran's research interests focus on the molecular signalling mechanisms that underlie cardiac injury and dysfunction (e.g. arrhythmias, contractile failure, infarction) in disease, and the development and evaluation of novel interventions for the inhibition and/or reversal of such injury and dysfunction.