Dr. Detlef Obal, MD, PhD, DESA is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine. He is also a Member of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. Dr. Obal completed his medical training at the Universities of Manchester (UK), Pretoria (South Africa) and Düsseldorf (Germany).

Dr. Obal earned his MD/PhD degree from the Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf, Germany and his PhD degree from the University of Louisville, KY. His previous work focuses on multiple aspects of cardiac regeneration under the influence of different anesthetics and cardioprotective strategies (i.e. pre- and postconditioning) using different transgenic mouse models. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute (laboratory of Joseph Wu) at which he studied the effects of opioids on the cardiovascular system, using inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) derived cardiomyocytes and endothelial cells.

His laboratory focuses on improving anesthesia care by focusing on individuals’ phenotypical and genetic background. The major areas of interest of his laboratory are understanding the basic mechanism of G-protein coupled receptor signaling on iPSC-derived cardiac and endothelial cells (in collaboration with the Brian Kobilka and Steven Chu labs) and describing the effect of anesthetics on early cardiovascular development.

Dr. Obal received multiple awards including the best poster price of the European Society of Anaesthesiology, Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Seed Grant, and the Stanford Maternal & Child Health Research Institute’s (MCHRI) TIP grant.

Dr. Obal is a Board-Certified Anesthesiologist and a Diplomate of the European Society of Anaesthesiology (DESA) with a clinical commitment of 20% of his time.