Lukas Kappenberger

Lukas Kappenberger, citizen of Lugano, was born 1943 in Basel, where he studied medicine. After first practice in general medicine in Ticino, postgraduate education followed in aviation medicine in Dübendorf, internal medicine in Lucerne and University of Zurich. After four years of senior registrar in internal medicine at Kantonsspital Luzern, training in Cardiology started 1978 at Guy’s hospital in London. In 1979 he created the first laboratory for clinical electrophysiology at the Kantonsspital Zürich where he was involved also with PTCA (Prof.Grüntzig) and pacing (Prof.Senning). Developing mapping techniques allowed in 1980 to perform first ablations of WPW and set the path for the first ICD implantation in 1984. After a thesis on the electrophysiologic investigation of the heart he received the venia legendi of the University of Zurich. In 1985 he was named as ordinary professor for Cardiology at the University of Lausanne and chief of Cardiology at the Hôpital Cantonal Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV). The fields of research were advanced pacing and arrhythmia therapies, coronary interventions and cardiomyopathies. The development of a computer-based virtual heart for simulation and design of diagnostic and therapeutic concepts is still, after he retired in 2008 from hospital missions, his main interest. His engagement for education led to the concept of a new curriculum for the specialty of cardiology in Switzerland while on European level his engagement for rhythmology within ESC led to the creation of EHRA.