Jeffrey S. Borer, M.D., is Professor of Medicine, Cell Biology, Radiology, Surgery and Public Health at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, where he formerly served as Chairman, Department of Medicine, and Chief, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and where he directs two research institutes. While Senior Fullbright Hays Scholar at Guy’s Hospital (London), he completed the first clinical demonstration of nitroglycerin’s utility in acute MI. Returning to NIH, he developed stress radionuclide cineangiography, introducing non-invasive assessment of cardiac function with exercise. He then returned to Cornell for 30 years as Harriman Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Chief, Division of Cardiovascular Pathophysiology. His current research focuses on valve diseases and clinical pharmacology. He has been a USFDA Advisor for 42 years, chaired multiple Advisory Committees, has served several national professional societies, serves as chair of the ISO committee on cardiovascular devices, has published more than 500 scientific articles/chapters and 8 books, edited the journal, Cardiology, for 14 years and has received several awards/recognitions for his contributions.

Cell Biology, Radiology, Surgery and Public Health

Sergey Suchkov was a Secretary-in-Chief of the Editorial Board, Biomedical Science, an international journal published jointly by the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK. At present, he is the Director of Center for Personalized Medicine, Sechenov University, Russia; Chair of Dept. for Translational Medicine, Moscow Engineering Physical University and Secretary General of United Cultural Convention, Cambridge, UK.

Personalized medicine, Translational research

George E Green,MD was formerly Professor of Clinical Surgery at Columbia University , Attending Surgeon at Columbia –Presbyterian Hospital, Senior Attending Surgeon at St. Lukes/ Roosevelt Hospital, New York, NY.

He has written extensively about internal thoracic – coronary anastomoses.

Roland Hetzer has completed his cardiothoracic surgery training in Hannover Medical School, Germany and in Stanford University, California. He performed the first heart transplantation in Hannover in 1983 and the first pediatric heart transplantation in Germany in 1985. Since 1986 he has been Professor of Surgery of the Free University of Berlin and then of the Charité and from January 1986 to September 2014 he was Medical Director and Chairman of the Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin. He and his team performed more than 1900 heart transplantations and more than 2300 implantations of mechanical circulatory support systems. He has made numerous original contributions in the field of cardiothoracic and vascular surgery particularly in surgical treatment of end-stage heart failure and valve surgery. From 1998 to 2016 he also served as Medical Director of Herzzentrum Cottbus. Presently, his clinical work is at the Cardio Centrum Berlin.

Cardiac Surgery, Heart Transplantation

Sergey Suchkov was a Secretary-in-Chief of the Editorial Board, Biomedical Science, an international journal published jointly by the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK. At present, he is the Director of Center for Personalized Medicine, Sechenov University, Russia; Chair of Dept. for Translational Medicine, Moscow Engineering Physical University and Secretary General of United Cultural Convention, Cambridge, UK.

Personalized medicine, Translational research

Robert Skalik is a Consultant in Cardiology at two hospitals (Regional General Hospital, Krotoszyn and Leszno Medical Centre “Ventriculus”, Leszno, Poland) and outpatient Cardiology Clinics in Wrocław. He is an academic Teacher in Department of Physiology, Medical University of Wrocław, Poland, former Consultant in Cardiology and Echocardiography, Department of Cardiac Surgery and Cardiology, Medical University of Wrocław. He completed his PhD in Echocardiography at Medical University of Wrocław, Poland. He completed his internship in Department of Cardiology, Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was a Lecturer at Post-graduate School of Cardiology, University of Perugia, Italy. He is a member of editorial and review boards for medical journals: Clinical and Medical Investigations, Journal of Cardiovascular Disorders, SRL Cardiology, Annals of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Diseases, Reviewer of International Journal of Cardiology, Expert Review of Cardiovascular Therapy, Reviewer of research projects on Cardiovascular Medicine and Physiology co-funded by European Commission, Author of 107 published reports.

Echocardiography

Marco Picichè (MD, Ph.D.) graduated with a degree in medicine from the University of Florence in 1995 and completed his cardiac surgery residency at the Tor Vergata University of Rome in 2000, both summa cum laude. He has worked as an assistant at Saint Luc Hospital, Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels (1999–2001), as a clinic head/hospital assistant at the universities of Clermont-Ferrand (2003–2004) and Montpellier (2004–2007). He held regular teaching appointments at the university of Montpellier school of medicine, obtained certification by the French Board in cardiac surgery (Paris, 2007), earned his research master in surgical science (Paris, 2007). In Canada, he authored a research project on ‘‘Noncoronary collateral circulation’’ which was submitted to the annual research competition at Québec Heart & Lung Institute, Laval University, and received the competition’s highest grant. In September 2011 he received a doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) in therapeutic innovations from Paris-Sud University. He is the Editor in Chief of the book : Dawn and evolution of cardiac procedures : research avenues in cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology- (Springer-Verlag publishing house, September 2012). Currently he is a consultant cardiac surgeon in Italy.

Cardiac Surgery, Interventional Cardiology

Fabiola B Sozzi works as a Staff Cardiologist at University Hospital Policlinico of Milan, Italy. She has high skills in multimodality imaging of heart disease using echocardiography integrated with cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, cardiac computed tomography and nuclear. She also works in the acute clinical setting treating acute cardiac syndromes. She has expertise in Echocardiography at Thoraxcenter of Rotterdam (NL), where she defended her PhD thesis on Stress Cardiac Imaging under the supervision of Professor J Roelandt. She is a Visiting Professor at University of Milan where she leads several research projects and teaches at Faculty of Medicine and School of Specialization of Cardiology. She is an Author of 70 papers published in peer-reviewed international journals and Reviewer of several medical international journals.

Echocardiography, cardiac imaging

Sergio Mejía Viana has completed his Cardiology training and Doctorate at the University Clinic of Navarre. He was an interventional Cardiologist, Angiologist and Phlebologist for 20 years. He is a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology, has written more than 100 scientific publications including abstracts, articles and book chapters. He returned to clinical practice with high interest in prevention. Currently, he is a Consultant at the Medical Investigation Unit in St. Bernard´s Hospital in Gibraltar.

Angiology, Atypical risk factors, Heavy metals toxicity.

Višnja Nesek Adam is anesthesiologist, emergency medicine specialist and subspecialist in intensive care medicine. She is recognised for her expertise in emergency medicine. Dr. Nesek served as Assistant Professor at JJ Strossmayer School of Medicine at the University of Osijek. Although she loves the clinical practice of anesthesia and emergency medicine, teaching students is her true passion and she was responsible for teaching medical students, residents and fellows about the anesthesia and emergency medicine. She is also Head of the University Department of anesthesiology, reanimatology and intensive care medicine and Center for emergency medicine.

Cardiac anethesiology

Galya Atanasova has completed her PhD training in Cardiology from Department of Cardiology, Pulmonology and Endocrinology at Pleven Medical University, Bulgaria. She is a General Practitioner and Cardiologist in Trainee at Pleven Medical University, Bulgaria. She specialized in General Medicine from Pleven Medical University, Bulgaria during 1993. She has attended many international events and presented her research work. She did many researches on metabolic syndrome and myocardial infarction of heart.

Preventive Cardiology, Regenerative Biology Research, Deciphering the molecular and Cellular Mechanisms, Maintenance and Differentiation of Cardiovascular Progenitors, Translational Cardiovascular Genetics, and Proteomic Analysis of Heart Disease.

Telmo Pereira is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Coimbra Health School, and is the Head of the Clinical Physiology Department. In the last five year, he has developed research in the areas of Cardiovascular Prevention and Neurosciences, and has also collaborated in the development of new non-invasive technology options for the assessment of vascular function.

Cardiovascular Prevention

Manuela Stoicescu is the Consultant Internal Medicine, PhD, Assistant professor of University of Oradea, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Medical Disciplines Department, Romania.

Internal Medicine

He completed his under graduation in 1996 from Ashwood Medical University (Texas) and Masters (MD) in internal medicine in 1999 from Belford University (Texas).

Interventional Cardiology