Sander Verheule

Associate professor

Dr Sander Verheule has studied Biology at the University of Utrecht, with internships at the Hubrecht Laboratory for Developmental Biology and at the Department of Neurophysiology (VU Amsterdam). As a PhD student in the group of Dr Habo Jongsma (Department of Medical Physiology, Utrecht), he investigated the distribution and electrophysiological behavior of gap junction channels in various regions of the heart, defending his PhD thesis in 1999. From 1999-2003, he worked as an AHA post-doctoral fellow in the group of Dr Jeffrey Olgin and Dr Douglas Zipes at the Krannert Institute of Cardiology in Indianapolis, Indiana. There, his research focussed on the impact of structural remodeling on atrial conduction.

In 2003, Dr Verheule joined the electrophysiology group at the Department of Physiology in Maastricht. In his current research, he investigates the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying atrial fibrillation, and the recognition of these mechanisms in patients. His two main research questions are 1) How do atrial vascular and metabolic remodeling contribute to the progression of atrial fibrillation? and 2) How do changes in atrial tissue structure affect atrial electrical propagation?

Department of Physiology
Universiteitssingel 50, 6229 ER Maastricht
PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht
Room number: F3.118
T: +31(0)43 388 10 76

2025
- Ayagama, T., Berridge, G., Fischer, R., Capel, R. A., Verheule, S., Schotten, U., & Burton, R. A. B. (2025). Protocol for endolysosomal proteomics in goat atrial tissue using a refined density-gradient approach. STAR protocols, 6(4), Article 104248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xpro.2025.104248
- Akerman, E., Aston, D., Rog-Zielinska, E. A., Boland, B., Schotten, U., Verheule, S., Capel, R. A., & Burton, R. A. B. (2025). Atrial granules as acidic calcium stores in cardiomyocytes. European heart journal open, 5(4), Article oeaf083. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehjopen/oeaf083
- Schotten, U., Goette, A., & Verheule, S. (2025). Translation of pathophysiological mechanisms of atrial fibrosis into new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. Nature Reviews Cardiology, 22(4), 225-240. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-024-01088-w
- Isaacs, A., Zeemering, S., Winters, J., Batlle, M., Bidar, E., Boukens, B., Casadei, B., Chua, W., Crijns, H. J. G. M., Fabritz, L., Guasch, E., Hatem, S. N., Hermans, B., Kääb, S., Kawczynski, M., Maesen, B., Maessen, J., Mont, L., Sinner, M. F., ... Stoll, M. (2025). Lateral Atrial Expression Patterns Provide Insights into Local Transcription Disequilibrium Contributing to Disease Susceptibility. Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine, 18(1), Article e004594. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCGEN.124.004594
- Ozgul, O., Marques, V. G., Hermans, B. JM., van Hunnik, A., Verheule, S., Gharaviri, A., Pezzuto, S., Auricchio, A., Schotten, U., Bonizzi, P., & Zeemering, S. (2025). High-density and high-coverage composite atrial activation maps: an in-silico validation study. Ieee Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 72(1), 79-89. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBME.2024.3439502
2024
- van Hunnik, A., Sobota, V., Zeemering, S., Opacic, D., Scaf, B., D'Alessandro, E., Oyaert, K., Kuiper, M., Diness, J. G., Sorensen, U. S., Milnes, J. T., van der Heyden, M. A. G., Jespersen, T., Schotten, U., & Verheule, S. (2024). Analysis of drug-induced and spontaneous cardioversions reveals similar patterns leading to termination of atrial fibrillation. Frontiers in physiology, 15, Article 1399037. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2024.1399037
- Winters, J., Kawczynski, M. J., Gilbers, M. D., Isaacs, A., Zeemering, S., Bidar, E., Maesen, B., Rienstra, M., van Gelder, I., Verheule, S., Maessen, J. G., & Schotten, U. (2024). Circulating BMP10 Levels Associate With Late Postoperative Atrial Fibrillation and Left Atrial Endomysial Fibrosis. JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology, 10(7), 1326-1340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacep.2024.03.003
- Ayagama, T., Charles, P. D., Bose, S. J., Boland, B., Priestman, D. A., Aston, D., Berridge, G., Fischer, R., Cribbs, A. P., Song, Q., Mirams, G. R., Amponsah, K., Heather, L., Galione, A., Herring, N., Kramer, H., Capel, R. A., Platt, F. M., Schotten, U., ... Burton, R. A. B. (2024). Compartmentalization proteomics revealed endolysosomal protein network changes in a goat model of atrial fibrillation. iScience, 27(6), Article 109609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.109609
- Hermans, B., Özgül, O., Wolf, M., Gonçalves Marques, V., van Hunnik, A., Verheule, S., Chaldoupi, M., Linz, D., El Haddad, M., Duytschaever, M., Bonizzi, P., Vernooy, K., Knecht, S., Zeemering, S., & Schotten, U. (2024). Selecting repetitive focal and rotational activation patterns with the highest probability of being a source of atrial fibrillation. Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology Plus, 7, Article 100064. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmccpl.2024.100064
2023
- Winters, J., Isaacs, A., Zeemering, S., Kawczynski, M., Maesen, B., Maessen, J., Bidar, E., Boukens, B., Hermans, B., van Hunnik, A., Casadei, B., Fabritz, L., Chua, W., Sommerfeld, L., Guasch, E., Mont, L., Batlle, M., Hatem, S., Kirchhof, P., ... Schotten, U. (2023). Heart Failure, Female Sex, and Atrial Fibrillation Are the Main Drivers of Human Atrial Cardiomyopathy: Results From the CATCH ME Consortium. Journal of the American Heart Association, 12(22), Article e031220. https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.123.031220

Overview

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Sander Verheule

Associate professor