About

Aims and Activities

Short description

• The Working Group is among the Constituent Bodies of ESC and under its administration.
• The WG Board is composed of a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Treasurer and a Nucleus of 8 members.
• The Chairman's mandate is 2 years long, at its end the Vice-Chairman takes over and a new one is elected by the Nucleus.
• The Nucleus renews its members by election between WG affiliates.
• Only some of the Nucleus members are changed at each occasion. The Past-Chairman and the Organiser of the last WG meeting are by default part of the Nucleus.
• A member of the Nucleus is elected to represent the WG in the Council of Basic Science of the ESC.

Goals

The major goal of the Working Group is to foster exchange of scientific information in the field of cellular electrophysiology.

The annual meeting is a forum for presenting new and unpublished data with emphasis on informal discussion. The younger scientists get the opportunity to present their work and are encouraged to actively participate.

The WG has been the catalyst for collaborations and exchange visits between European laboratories, as well as for establishing joint research proposals within the EC. 

At the annual meeting of the ESC, the WG contributes overview sessions of the latest developments in the field of cellular and molecular aspects of ion channel function, covering the basic properties as well as the clinical perspectives.

Research areas

General:

Structural and functional properties of ion channels and ion transport in cardiac myocytes

Specific: 

• biophysical properties of (single) ion and gap junction channels
• structure-function studies of ion channels
• physiological modulation of cardiac excitability and impulse propagation
• pharmacology of ion channels 
• calcium homeostasis and excitation-contraction coupling
• ionic mechanisms of arrhythmogenesis in ischemic syndromes
• ionic remodelling during hypertrophy and heart failure