Mathias Gautel is the British Heart Foundation Professor of Molecular Cardiology at King’s College London. His research has focussed on understanding the functional network around the largest protein of the human body, the 3000 kiloDalton striated muscle protein titin. He has shown how it interacts with other sarcomeric proteins, several of which he discovered. His discoveries include the giant protein kinase and G-protein regulator, obscurin, which he showed is involved in hereditary myopathies. His work has led to the concept that this protein kinase complex acts as a sensor for mechanical strain explaining how muscles adapt to changes in load.