David Alfred Eisner, FRCP (Hon), FMedSci, (born 3 January 1955)�
EISNER, Prof. David Alfred
��, Who's Who 2017, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2017; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2016 ; online edn, Nov 2016 is British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiac Physiology at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

and editor-in-chief of '' The Journal of General Physiology'' (''JGP'').

Education

Eisner was born in 1955 in Manchester, the son of the

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and writer

Herbert Eisner Herbert Sigmund Eisner (23 June 1921 – 28 June 2011)
retrieved January 2018 was a ...

. After attending Manchester Grammar School, he received his B.A. in

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...

in 1976. In 1979 he obtained a D.Phil. in physiology at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in the laboratory of Denis Noble for work on the sodium pump in cardiac muscle.

Career

Following postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge on the kinetics of the

sodium pump Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable isot ...

in the laboratory of Ian Glynn, he took up a lectureship in the Department of Physiology at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in 1980. In 1990 he moved to

The University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

as professor of veterinary biology. In 1999 he took up a chair of cardiac physiology at the University of Manchester and, in 2000, was awarded the BHF Chair of Cardiac Physiology. Eisner was chair of the editorial board of '' The Journal of Physiology'' from 1997 to 2000 and editor-in chief of the '' Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology'' from 2007 to 2016. He was president of The Federation of European Physiological Societies (FEPS) from 2011-2015 and The Physiological Society from 2016 to 2018.

Research

Eisner's early research focused on the regulation of intracellular sodium in

cardiac muscle Cardiac muscle (also called heart muscle, myocardium, cardiomyocytes and cardiac myocytes) is one of three types of vertebrate muscle tissues, with the other two being skeletal muscle and smooth muscle. It is an involuntary, striated muscle th ...

and the effects on contraction. He then investigated the control of intracellular calcium concentration and its role in the production of

arrhythmia Arrhythmias, also known as cardiac arrhythmias, heart arrhythmias, or dysrhythmias, are irregularities in the heartbeat, including when it is too fast or too slow. A resting heart rate that is too fast – above 100 beats per minute in adults ...

s. He has identified the factors that regulate the calcium content of the sarcoplasmic reticulum and how this is altered in disease. His recent research has focused on the control of diastolic calcium and the effects of

calcium buffering Calcium buffering describes the processes which help stabilise the concentration of free calcium ions within cells, in a similar manner to how Buffer solution, pH buffers maintain a stable concentration of hydrogen ions. The majority of calcium ion ...

. He has also written and spoken about scientific reproducibility and fraud.

Personal life

Eisner is married to Susan Wray, professor of cellular and molecular

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

at the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

, with whom he has three children.

Honours and awards

Eisner was elected as a Fellow of The

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to adv ...

in 1999 and The

International Society for Heart Research The International Society for Heart Research began as an "International Study Group for Research in Cardiac Metabolism" in Dubrovnik in 1968; at the 1976 World Congress in Tokyo, it adopted the name "International Society for Heart Research". It c ...

in 2001. and as a Member of Academia Europaea in 2007. He was elected to Honorary Fellowship of The Royal College of Physicians in 2010. In 2018 he received an honorary doctorate, ''Doctor Honoris Causa'', from The

University of Debrecen ThUniversity of Debrecen( hu, Debreceni Egyetem) is a university located in Debrecen, Hungary. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest continuously operating institution of higher education in Hungary ever since its ...

. and , in 2021 from The University of Szeged. Prizes awarded to him include: The GL Brown and Annual Review Lecture of The Physiological Society; the Keith Reimer Lecture and the Peter Harris Distinguished Scientist Award of the International Society for Heart Research; the Carmeliet-Coraboeuf-Weidmann Lecture of the European Working Group on Cardiac Cellular Electrophysiology; the Fabio Ruzzier Lecture of The Italian Physiological Society. He has also delivered the Burdon-Sanderson Lecture (Oxford) in 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eisner, David A. British cardiologists Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) 1955 births Living people Alumni of King's College, Cambridge People educated at Manchester Grammar School Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians British physiologists The Journal of Physiology editors Presidents of The Physiological Society