Thomas Eschen­ha­gen is a med­ical doc­tor and phar­ma­co­lo­gist and has been Dir­ector of the Insti­tute of Phar­ma­co­logy at the Uni­ver­sity of Ham­burg since 2002. His spe­ci­al­ity is car­di­ovas­cu­lar research, where he is one of the lead­ing inter­na­tional sci­ent­ists, par­tic­u­larly in the field of strength­en­ing and regen­er­at­ing the heart. Since its found­a­tion in 2011, Thomas Eschen­ha­gen has been Chair­man of the Board of the Ger­man Centre for Car­di­ovas­cu­lar Research (DZHK), and since 2019 he has been Pres­id­ent of the Inter­na­tional Soci­ety for Heart Research. He is a mem­ber of the board of the Ger­man Found­a­tion for Heart Research and has been Asso­ci­ate Editor of Cir­cu­la­tion, one of the lead­ing car­di­ovas­cu­lar journ­als, since 2016. Thomas Eschen­ha­gen is a mem­ber of the Academy of Sci­ences in Göt­tin­gen, the Leo­pold­ina and the Aca­demia Euro­paea and has been awar­ded fund­ing by the European Research Coun­cil, ERC