Prof. Karlheinz Peter

Karlheinz Peter is Deputy Director and Head of the Atherothrombosis and Vascular Biology Program at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia. He also works as a senior interventional cardiologist at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. He is Professor of Medicine and Immunology at Monash University and is a senior principal research fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia. He obtained his research and clinical training at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, Scripps Research Institute and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in the US and at the Universities of Heidelberg and Freiburg in Germany, where he was Director of the Cardiac Catheter Laboratory before taking up a position at the Baker Institute. His research is focused on the mechanisms, prevention and novel therapeutic approaches in thrombosis, inflammation, atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction, encompassing the role of platelets, coagulation and the immune system. He has developed and patented novel biomarker and molecular imaging strategies for thromboembolism and unstable plaques using MRI, PET, CT, ultrasound and fluorescence imaging as well as innovative biotechnological anti-thrombotic and anti-inflammatory approaches.