Kurt Paul Pfannkuche is the Principal Investigator (Center for Physiology and Pathophysiology) at the University of Cologne. He studied biology at the University of Cologne and wrote his diploma thesis at the Institute of Genetics on the subject of cell-permeable proteins. His scientific career started in the laboratory of the renowned immunologist Klaus Rajewsky with a project on genetically engineered cell-permeable Cre-recombinase. He continued his scientific work at the Institute for Neurophysiology at the University of Cologne, specializing in the cardiac development of stem cells. He established The Marga-and-Walter-Boll-Laboratory for Cardiac Tissue Engineering. His research interests are focused on Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and organotypic cells differentiated from hiPSCs.