Prof. dr N.M.S. (Natasja) de Groot, PhD - Researcher

About

Introduction

Prof. Dr. Natasja MS de Groot, FEHRA works as senior cardiologist-electrophysiologist. She is appointed as full-time professor in the Erasmus Medical Center and the Technical University in Delft. She is also a Medical Delta Professor. She is experienced in device implantations and catheter ablation procedures with a variety of mapping/ablation technologies including remote magnetic/robotic navigation and a diversity of electro-anatomical mapping techniques. Main foci of her clinical work include: 1) catheter ablation of complex tachyarrhythmias such as post-operative tachyarrhythmias in patients with congenital heart disease, 2) catheter ablation in paediatric patients.

Field(s) of expertise

Her research projects are aimed at unravelling the pathophysiology of complex cardiac tachyarrhythmias, developing and testing developing novel diagnostic tools (in close collaboration with TU Delft) and therapies for cardiac arrhythmias. Main research topics are high resolution mapping studies of cardiac arrhythmias in particular atrial fibrillation, mechanisms of (post-operative) atrial fibrillation, dysrhythmias in patients with congenital heart disease and neuromodulation of atrial fibrillation. For this purpose, she has developed a unique way of recording and processing cardiac signals to perform mapping procedures.

Her innovative scientific contributions include:

discovery of novel mechanisms underlying persistence of atrial fibrillation
introduction endovascular mapping approach guiding ablative therapy of atrial tachyarrhythmias in patients with congenital heart disease
development of a novel, intra- operative epicardial mapping approach.
discovery of the role of Bachmann’s bundle in development of atrial tachyarrhythmias
performed worldwide the first high resolution mapping studies in pediatric patient
discovery conduction properties in pediatric patients with congenital heart disease

Education and career

She was trained in clinical electrophysiology at the Leiden University Medical Center under supervision of Prof. Dr. Schalij and in experimental electrophysiology at the Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht under supervision of Prof. Dr. Allessie. She obtained her PhD in both clinical and experimental electrophysiology; the title of her thesis was ‘Mapping and Ablation of Atrial TachyArrhythmias; from Signal to Substrate’. In 2009, she moved to Erasmus Medical Center to establish her own research group.

She founded the research unit translational electrophysiology. Her research program was in 2018 rewarded with the prestigious VIDI-grant. In 2019, she became director of the Medical Delta Cardiac Arrhythmia Lab, a multidisciplinary research team including medical doctors, engineers, biologists, patients and companies. In 2020, she established together with Dr. Y. Taverne (cardiothoracic surgeon) the Erasmus Center Cardiac Morphology and Electrophysiology. In 2020, she established one of the Convergence Programs Deep Imaging together with Prof. Dr. N. de Jong.

Present composition of her research group

She is currently supervisor of 31 PhDs student, 8 master students and 10 bachelor/master students of medicine, technical medicine and physics. Her research unit offers research internships for master students/bachelor students of medicine, technical medicine (TU Twente, TU Delft), (technical) information technology (Hoge School Rotterdam) Junior medschool students. In addition, she has several multi-disciplinary, (inter)national collaborations (e.g. electrical, biomechanical engineering and molecular biology).

Publications

Publicaties Prof. Dr. N.M.S. de Groot

Teaching activities

Prof. Dr. de Groot is experienced in lecturing, developing and organizing/managing educational programmes for students in medicine -both in the bachelors and master’s program-, co-assistants’, cardiologist in training and fellow’s electrophysiology. Additionally, she has organized (international) symposia for cardiologists, electrophysiologists, general practitioners, nursing home doctors and geriatricians. She has been trainer electrophysiology from 2014 to 2015.

She also organizes internships for students of technical medicine (TU Twente, TU Delft), (technical) information technology, marketing and management and multi-media technology (Hogeschool Rotterdam), Junior Med School students (EUR) and minor students (TU Delft). She is coordinator of the block advanced signal processing in the master clinical technology (EMC, LUCM, TU Delft) and she was part of the visitation committee of the master clinical technology. She also teaches in Vector (Association Extracurricular Cardiology and Thoracic Surgery Education Rotterdam).

Scholarships, grants, and awards

My Groups

Unit translational electrophysiology, department of cardiology, Theme Thorax

Medical Delta Cardiac Arrhythmia Lab

Atrial Fibrillation Innovation Platform

Academic center of Cardiac Morphology and Electrophysiology

Cardiac Bioelectricity Laboratory

Electrophysiology Our projects focus on experimental, translational and clinical research on diagnosis and therapy of cardiac arrhythmias.

Departments and research centers

Cardiology

Research groups/labs

Electrophysiology

Prof. dr N.M.S. (Natasja) de Groot, PhD - Researcher - Erasmus MC (2024)