Advances in Co-registration, Coronary Physiology & Intra Coronary Imaging - April 2024

Prof Javier Escaned is Head of Section (Interventional Cardiology Section) at Hospital Clinico San Carlos / Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). He trained in the United Kingdom as Specialist in Cardiology and obtained his PhD in The Netherlands. Author of >600 indexed scientific articles on interventional cardiology, imaging and physiology (h-index 74) and over 30 years of experience as PCI operator, he regularly lectures and performs live cases at major scientific and educational meetings. He is a recipient of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Silver Medal and the Andreas Grüntzig Award for his contributions to the fiedl fo Interventional Cardiology. Main areas of expertise include complex PCI, intracoronary diagnostics and functional coronary angiography. His track record in coronary physiology comprises being investigator on pioneer FFR trials like DEFER (1998), collaborator with Justin Davies in the validation and clinical implementation of iFR, and developer of new tools for the assessment of coronary microcirculation. Editorial roles include Deputy Editor EHJ, Advisory Editor Eurointervention, editor of the textbooks “Coronary Stenosis: Imaging, Structure and Physiology” and “Physiological Assessment of Coronary Stenoses and the Microcirculation". Recent board positions include EAPCI board / Education Committee Chair, ESC WG Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation, EuroCTO Board. Recent trials as Principal Investigator include ADVISE II, DEFINE FLAIR, SYNTAX II, PIONEER IV, Cerebral-Coronary-Connection (C3), DCR4Contrast, INOCA LongCovid and AID ANGIO. Additional interests are philosophy and music.

Dr Justin Davies is a honorary 
interventional cardiologist at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College NHS Trust, London. After training at Imperial College, he won a prestigious BHF research fellowship to study arterial haemodynamics. Since then he has continued to
work on the development of mathematical algorithms to aid understanding of large artery physiology and to develop new tools to assess arterial disease. The holder of several patents,
he has published widely in the field of hypertension, coronary and large artery physiology and is the winner of many national and international awards. He has several international collaborations, and is the developer of iFR and the co-principal investigator of the ADVISE studies, the DEFINE-FLAIR, ORBITA and DEFINE-PCI studies. Justin also has an interest in renal denervation, and has lead the first-in-man studies to evaluate the safety of this technique to patients with chronic systolic heart failure (REACH studies).

Prof Andrew Sharp qualified from Edinburgh Medical School in 1998 and is Professor of Cardiology at the University Hospital of Wales and Cardiff University in the U.K. He conducted his early training at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, before moving to London for his senior clinical training. He completed the prestigious Milan-Imperial Interventional Cardiology Fellowship programme, having spent a year in San Raffaele and Columbus Hospitals, Milan, Italy, under the tutelage of Professor Antonio Colombo. He also spent three years training in interventional cardiology at Imperial College Hospitals in London. Prof Sharp was awarded an MD postgraduate research degree from the University of Edinburgh for his work on the hypertensive heart and his research interests include intracoronary imaging and physiology. as well as the use of device-based treatments for hypertension and pulmonary embolism.

Angela McInerney is an Interventional Cardiologist at University Hospital Galway, Ireland. Following completion of her basic cardiology training in Ireland she was awarded the Brian McGovern Travelling Fellowship grant from the Irish Board for Cardiology Training in 2018 which allowed her to start her interventional fellowship in Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain. Following two years of coronary training including complex PCI, she was awarded an European Society of Cardiology Fellowship Training Grant and completed a further year of structural intervention also in Clínico San Carlos, Madrid. Her specialist interests are in intracoronary imaging, intracoronary physiology, calcium modification techniques and complex PCI. She has been keenly involved in various research projects pertaining to intracoronary physiology and intravascular imaging having authored and co-authored a number of research articles as well as review articles and book chapters on these topics. During her fellowship she also regularly partook in the preparation and delivery of educational courses in Clínico San Carlos and values the educational aspect of her role as a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist.

Dr Carlos Collet completed his education as an interventional cardiologist at the prestigious Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology in Sao Paulo, Brazil 2011, with training in cardiac CT at the Holy Cross Hospital, Florida, USA. Dr. Collet Bortone continued his education with a doctorate in cardiovascular sciences at the University of Amsterdam, and his Ph.D. thesis focused on the expansion of the current indication of cardiac CT to patients with complex coronary artery disease. Dr. Collet Bortone has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, and his research focused on the integration of cardiac imaging and physiology. He is the co-director of the catheterisation laboratory at the OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium.

Dr Justin Davies is a honorary 
interventional cardiologist at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College NHS Trust, London. After training at Imperial College, he won a prestigious BHF research fellowship to study arterial haemodynamics. Since then he has continued to
work on the development of mathematical algorithms to aid understanding of large artery physiology and to develop new tools to assess arterial disease. The holder of several patents,
he has published widely in the field of hypertension, coronary and large artery physiology and is the winner of many national and international awards. He has several international collaborations, and is the developer of iFR and the co-principal investigator of the ADVISE studies, the DEFINE-FLAIR, ORBITA and DEFINE-PCI studies. Justin also has an interest in renal denervation, and has lead the first-in-man studies to evaluate the safety of this technique to patients with chronic systolic heart failure (REACH studies).

Dr. Salvatore Brugaletta is a Senior Consultant Interventional Cardiologist with a large experience in coronary and structural heart disease (Intracoronary imaging, INOCA, complex heart disease, left main, bifurcation, STEMI, cardiogenic shock, TAVI, etc). Highly skilled in Clinical Research, Medical Education and Medical Devices with strong commitment inside medical communities. Two PhD focused on interventional cardiology from Erasmus University (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) and Sacred Heart University (Rome, Italy). He has authored around 380 manuscripts published in the peer-reviewed literature. Clinically, his interests include: preventive cardiology, acute coronary syndrome / angina, drug eluting metallic and bioresorbable stents, invasive coronary imaging and physiology and TAVI (Transcatheter aortic valve implantation).

Angela McInerney is an Interventional Cardiologist at University Hospital Galway, Ireland. Following completion of her basic cardiology training in Ireland she was awarded the Brian McGovern Travelling Fellowship grant from the Irish Board for Cardiology Training in 2018 which allowed her to start her interventional fellowship in Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain. Following two years of coronary training including complex PCI, she was awarded an European Society of Cardiology Fellowship Training Grant and completed a further year of structural intervention also in Clínico San Carlos, Madrid. Her specialist interests are in intracoronary imaging, intracoronary physiology, calcium modification techniques and complex PCI. She has been keenly involved in various research projects pertaining to intracoronary physiology and intravascular imaging having authored and co-authored a number of research articles as well as review articles and book chapters on these topics. During her fellowship she also regularly partook in the preparation and delivery of educational courses in Clínico San Carlos and values the educational aspect of her role as a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist.

Carlo Di Mario is Professor of Cardiology at the University of Florence and Director of the Structural 
Interventional Cardiology Division of the University Hospital Careggi, Florence, Italy. Previous posts included 15 years as Professor of Clinical Cardiology at Imperial College of Sciences, Medicine & Technology, London and Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital. Despite his teaching, research and administrative commitments, he maintains an active clinical involvement performing more than 100 PCI per year with special interest in the treatment of calcified lesions, chronic total occlusions, bifurcations, and diffuse disease. He is a regular TAVI operator and certified implanter for the Medtronic Evolut R and Edwards Sapien 3 transcatheter aortic valves. He participated in more than 160 MitraClip implantations in London and Florence and has recently started direct annuloplasty with the CardioBand. Professor Di Mario pioneered the use of intracoronary Doppler, pressure measurement, intravascular ultrasound, optical coherence tomography, and near infrared spectroscopy. He was PI of the OPTICUS trial, failing to demonstrate superiority of IVUS guided stenting, and of the Lipid Rich Plaque study, due to report at TCT 2018. He was Principal Investigator of the DESTINI trial, using Doppler CRF to identify lesions in need of stenting, and of the CARESS in AMI trial, a large multicentre trial showing that patients who receive fibrinolytic therapy for ST-elevation myocardial infarction benefit from early angioplasty. This trial and a subsequent meta-analysis have led to a change in the European Society of Cardiology and AHA/ACC Guidelines for treatment of STEMI patients. He cooperated with Dr Davies to the validation of iFR to assess lesion severity and discriminate the contribution of individual lesions, and with Dr Lyon in the intracoronary delivery of SERCA-2 genes via adenoviral vectors in the CUPID2 trial.

Dr Dejan Milasinovic is an interventional cardiologist at the Department of Cardiology, Clinical Center of Serbia. He is also an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade. His main research interests focus in the fields of the invasive treatment of acute coronary syndromes and complex coronary interventions, with an emphasis on bifurcation PCI and intracoronary guidance. In 2016, Dr Milasinovic received the EuroPCR 2016 Best Abstract award, for a work on the timing of invasive coronary intervention in patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction. He is a member of European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI) and has served as program committee member of the annual EuroPCR conference. Dr Milasinovic also serves on the editorial boards of EuroIntervention (editorial consultant) and PCRonline and is the Chair of the EAPCI Young committee.

Dr Enrico Cerrato is Consultant interventional Cardiologist at San Luigi Gonzaga University and Rivoli Infermi Hospital cath lab unit (Turin, Italy) the second larger cath lab in Italy for PCI (>1900 PCI/y) coordinated by Dr. Francesco Tomassini and Dr.Ferdinando Varbella. Following his training as cardiologist, he completed a formal fellowship and a PhD program at Hospital Clinico San Carlos, (Madrid -Universidad Complutense), under the supervision of Prof. Javier Escaned. Dr Cerrato is one of the founder of Cardiogroup.org, a research network that has generated multiple studies on coronary imaging and physiology techniques, particularly focusing on intravascular imaging and physiology, spontaneus coronary artery dissection and complication treatment and prevention in interventional cardiology. He recently joined the structural aortic percutaneous treatment program in co-operation with Mauriziano Hospital in Turin.

Prof Javier Escaned is Head of Section (Interventional Cardiology Section) at Hospital Clinico San Carlos / Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). He trained in the United Kingdom as Specialist in Cardiology and obtained his PhD in The Netherlands. Author of >600 indexed scientific articles on interventional cardiology, imaging and physiology (h-index 74) and over 30 years of experience as PCI operator, he regularly lectures and performs live cases at major scientific and educational meetings. He is a recipient of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Silver Medal and the Andreas Grüntzig Award for his contributions to the fiedl fo Interventional Cardiology. Main areas of expertise include complex PCI, intracoronary diagnostics and functional coronary angiography. His track record in coronary physiology comprises being investigator on pioneer FFR trials like DEFER (1998), collaborator with Justin Davies in the validation and clinical implementation of iFR, and developer of new tools for the assessment of coronary microcirculation. Editorial roles include Deputy Editor EHJ, Advisory Editor Eurointervention, editor of the textbooks “Coronary Stenosis: Imaging, Structure and Physiology” and “Physiological Assessment of Coronary Stenoses and the Microcirculation". Recent board positions include EAPCI board / Education Committee Chair, ESC WG Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation, EuroCTO Board. Recent trials as Principal Investigator include ADVISE II, DEFINE FLAIR, SYNTAX II, PIONEER IV, Cerebral-Coronary-Connection (C3), DCR4Contrast, INOCA LongCovid and AID ANGIO. Additional interests are philosophy and music.

Laurie-Anne Boivin-Proulx is currently completing a Master in Interventional Cardiology and a PHD at the Hospital Clinical San Carlos, Madrid, with the goal of becoming a clinician-researcher with an interest in coronary physiology, microcirculation and women’s heart health. After her doctorate in medicine at the University of Sherbrooke (2016), she completed her residency in internal medicine (2020) and Cardiology (2023) at the University of Montreal, followed by a fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (2023). In addition to her medical training, she also completed a Master of Sciences (MSc) in Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan of Public Health (2021).

Dr Nieves Gonzalo is a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at Clinico San Carlos University Hospital, Madrid, Spain. She obtained her Specialist Certification in Cardiology after training at Clinico San Carlos University Hospital in Madrid. Subsequently, she underwent a research fellowship at Thoraxcenter, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands) focused mainly in intracoronary imaging and bioabsorbable stents. In 2010 she obtained her PhD with the thesis “Optical coherence tomography for the assessment of coronary atherosclerosis and vessel response after stent implantation”. Her track record includes over 170 articles indexed in PubMed, as well as book chapters in Interventional Cardiology textbooks. Recent research projects as principal investigator includes studies about neoatherosclerosis, vessel injury and healing after stent implantation and patterns of calcification in coronary disease. Dr Gonzalo is a dedicated educationalist with involvement in many areas of complex PCI. In 2022, Dr Gonzalo was appointed as a course director for EuroPCR, she also serves as a deputy editor of EuroIntervention, and as a co-chair of the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI) Scientific Documents and Initiatives Committee.

Dr Tim Schäufele is an interventional cardiologist with special interest in CTOs, coronary physiology and calcified lesions. He is owner of Kardiologie-Innenstad Bern private practice and Interventional Cardiologist at Lindenhofspital Bern. Prior to this, he served as Head of Cathlab and Interventional Cardiology at Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus Stuttgart, after serving as a Research Fellow in Cardiac Magnetic Imaging at the Department of Cardiology University Heidelberg. Dr Schäufele is a Co-Founding Member of Transradial Workingroup German Cardiac Society, a Board Member of the Interventional Working Group of the German Cardiac Society, and a Full Member EuroCTO Club.

Prof Andrew Sharp qualified from Edinburgh Medical School in 1998 and is Professor of Cardiology at the University Hospital of Wales and Cardiff University in the U.K. He conducted his early training at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, before moving to London for his senior clinical training. He completed the prestigious Milan-Imperial Interventional Cardiology Fellowship programme, having spent a year in San Raffaele and Columbus Hospitals, Milan, Italy, under the tutelage of Professor Antonio Colombo. He also spent three years training in interventional cardiology at Imperial College Hospitals in London. Prof Sharp was awarded an MD postgraduate research degree from the University of Edinburgh for his work on the hypertensive heart and his research interests include intracoronary imaging and physiology. as well as the use of device-based treatments for hypertension and pulmonary embolism.

Carlo Di Mario is Professor of Cardiology at the University of Florence and Director of the Structural 
Interventional Cardiology Division of the University Hospital Careggi, Florence, Italy. Previous posts included 15 years as Professor of Clinical Cardiology at Imperial College of Sciences, Medicine & Technology, London and Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital. Despite his teaching, research and administrative commitments, he maintains an active clinical involvement performing more than 100 PCI per year with special interest in the treatment of calcified lesions, chronic total occlusions, bifurcations, and diffuse disease. He is a regular TAVI operator and certified implanter for the Medtronic Evolut R and Edwards Sapien 3 transcatheter aortic valves. He participated in more than 160 MitraClip implantations in London and Florence and has recently started direct annuloplasty with the CardioBand. Professor Di Mario pioneered the use of intracoronary Doppler, pressure measurement, intravascular ultrasound, optical coherence tomography, and near infrared spectroscopy. He was PI of the OPTICUS trial, failing to demonstrate superiority of IVUS guided stenting, and of the Lipid Rich Plaque study, due to report at TCT 2018. He was Principal Investigator of the DESTINI trial, using Doppler CRF to identify lesions in need of stenting, and of the CARESS in AMI trial, a large multicentre trial showing that patients who receive fibrinolytic therapy for ST-elevation myocardial infarction benefit from early angioplasty. This trial and a subsequent meta-analysis have led to a change in the European Society of Cardiology and AHA/ACC Guidelines for treatment of STEMI patients. He cooperated with Dr Davies to the validation of iFR to assess lesion severity and discriminate the contribution of individual lesions, and with Dr Lyon in the intracoronary delivery of SERCA-2 genes via adenoviral vectors in the CUPID2 trial.

Dr Carlos Collet completed his education as an interventional cardiologist at the prestigious Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology in Sao Paulo, Brazil 2011, with training in cardiac CT at the Holy Cross Hospital, Florida, USA. Dr. Collet Bortone continued his education with a doctorate in cardiovascular sciences at the University of Amsterdam, and his Ph.D. thesis focused on the expansion of the current indication of cardiac CT to patients with complex coronary artery disease. Dr. Collet Bortone has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, and his research focused on the integration of cardiac imaging and physiology. He is the co-director of the catheterisation laboratory at the OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium.

Dr Dejan Milasinovic is an interventional cardiologist at the Department of Cardiology, Clinical Center of Serbia. He is also an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade. His main research interests focus in the fields of the invasive treatment of acute coronary syndromes and complex coronary interventions, with an emphasis on bifurcation PCI and intracoronary guidance. In 2016, Dr Milasinovic received the EuroPCR 2016 Best Abstract award, for a work on the timing of invasive coronary intervention in patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction. He is a member of European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI) and has served as program committee member of the annual EuroPCR conference. Dr Milasinovic also serves on the editorial boards of EuroIntervention (editorial consultant) and PCRonline and is the Chair of the EAPCI Young committee.

Dr Enrico Cerrato is Consultant interventional Cardiologist at San Luigi Gonzaga University and Rivoli Infermi Hospital cath lab unit (Turin, Italy) the second larger cath lab in Italy for PCI (>1900 PCI/y) coordinated by Dr. Francesco Tomassini and Dr.Ferdinando Varbella. Following his training as cardiologist, he completed a formal fellowship and a PhD program at Hospital Clinico San Carlos, (Madrid -Universidad Complutense), under the supervision of Prof. Javier Escaned. Dr Cerrato is one of the founder of Cardiogroup.org, a research network that has generated multiple studies on coronary imaging and physiology techniques, particularly focusing on intravascular imaging and physiology, spontaneus coronary artery dissection and complication treatment and prevention in interventional cardiology. He recently joined the structural aortic percutaneous treatment program in co-operation with Mauriziano Hospital in Turin.

Prof Javier Escaned is Head of Section (Interventional Cardiology Section) at Hospital Clinico San Carlos / Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). He trained in the United Kingdom as Specialist in Cardiology and obtained his PhD in The Netherlands. Author of >600 indexed scientific articles on interventional cardiology, imaging and physiology (h-index 74) and over 30 years of experience as PCI operator, he regularly lectures and performs live cases at major scientific and educational meetings. He is a recipient of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Silver Medal and the Andreas Grüntzig Award for his contributions to the fiedl fo Interventional Cardiology. Main areas of expertise include complex PCI, intracoronary diagnostics and functional coronary angiography. His track record in coronary physiology comprises being investigator on pioneer FFR trials like DEFER (1998), collaborator with Justin Davies in the validation and clinical implementation of iFR, and developer of new tools for the assessment of coronary microcirculation. Editorial roles include Deputy Editor EHJ, Advisory Editor Eurointervention, editor of the textbooks “Coronary Stenosis: Imaging, Structure and Physiology” and “Physiological Assessment of Coronary Stenoses and the Microcirculation". Recent board positions include EAPCI board / Education Committee Chair, ESC WG Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation, EuroCTO Board. Recent trials as Principal Investigator include ADVISE II, DEFINE FLAIR, SYNTAX II, PIONEER IV, Cerebral-Coronary-Connection (C3), DCR4Contrast, INOCA LongCovid and AID ANGIO. Additional interests are philosophy and music.

Dr Justin Davies is a honorary 
interventional cardiologist at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College NHS Trust, London. After training at Imperial College, he won a prestigious BHF research fellowship to study arterial haemodynamics. Since then he has continued to
work on the development of mathematical algorithms to aid understanding of large artery physiology and to develop new tools to assess arterial disease. The holder of several patents,
he has published widely in the field of hypertension, coronary and large artery physiology and is the winner of many national and international awards. He has several international collaborations, and is the developer of iFR and the co-principal investigator of the ADVISE studies, the DEFINE-FLAIR, ORBITA and DEFINE-PCI studies. Justin also has an interest in renal denervation, and has lead the first-in-man studies to evaluate the safety of this technique to patients with chronic systolic heart failure (REACH studies).

Angela McInerney is an Interventional Cardiologist at University Hospital Galway, Ireland. Following completion of her basic cardiology training in Ireland she was awarded the Brian McGovern Travelling Fellowship grant from the Irish Board for Cardiology Training in 2018 which allowed her to start her interventional fellowship in Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain. Following two years of coronary training including complex PCI, she was awarded an European Society of Cardiology Fellowship Training Grant and completed a further year of structural intervention also in Clínico San Carlos, Madrid. Her specialist interests are in intracoronary imaging, intracoronary physiology, calcium modification techniques and complex PCI. She has been keenly involved in various research projects pertaining to intracoronary physiology and intravascular imaging having authored and co-authored a number of research articles as well as review articles and book chapters on these topics. During her fellowship she also regularly partook in the preparation and delivery of educational courses in Clínico San Carlos and values the educational aspect of her role as a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist.

Dr Carlos Collet completed his education as an interventional cardiologist at the prestigious Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology in Sao Paulo, Brazil 2011, with training in cardiac CT at the Holy Cross Hospital, Florida, USA. Dr. Collet Bortone continued his education with a doctorate in cardiovascular sciences at the University of Amsterdam, and his Ph.D. thesis focused on the expansion of the current indication of cardiac CT to patients with complex coronary artery disease. Dr. Collet Bortone has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, and his research focused on the integration of cardiac imaging and physiology. He is the co-director of the catheterisation laboratory at the OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium.

Dr Enrico Cerrato is Consultant interventional Cardiologist at San Luigi Gonzaga University and Rivoli Infermi Hospital cath lab unit (Turin, Italy) the second larger cath lab in Italy for PCI (>1900 PCI/y) coordinated by Dr. Francesco Tomassini and Dr.Ferdinando Varbella. Following his training as cardiologist, he completed a formal fellowship and a PhD program at Hospital Clinico San Carlos, (Madrid -Universidad Complutense), under the supervision of Prof. Javier Escaned. Dr Cerrato is one of the founder of Cardiogroup.org, a research network that has generated multiple studies on coronary imaging and physiology techniques, particularly focusing on intravascular imaging and physiology, spontaneus coronary artery dissection and complication treatment and prevention in interventional cardiology. He recently joined the structural aortic percutaneous treatment program in co-operation with Mauriziano Hospital in Turin.

Dr Justin Davies is a honorary 
interventional cardiologist at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College NHS Trust, London. After training at Imperial College, he won a prestigious BHF research fellowship to study arterial haemodynamics. Since then he has continued to
work on the development of mathematical algorithms to aid understanding of large artery physiology and to develop new tools to assess arterial disease. The holder of several patents,
he has published widely in the field of hypertension, coronary and large artery physiology and is the winner of many national and international awards. He has several international collaborations, and is the developer of iFR and the co-principal investigator of the ADVISE studies, the DEFINE-FLAIR, ORBITA and DEFINE-PCI studies. Justin also has an interest in renal denervation, and has lead the first-in-man studies to evaluate the safety of this technique to patients with chronic systolic heart failure (REACH studies).

Dr. Luca Paolucci is a clinical/research fellow in interventional cardiology at Hospital Clinico San Carlos/Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). He obtained his medical degree at the University "Tor Vergata" in Rome (Italy, 2017) and completed his residency in cardiovascular diseases at University "Campus Bio-Medico" in Rome (Italy 2022). He worked as interventional cardiologist between 2022 and 2023 at Clinica Mediterranea, Naples (Italy).

Dr. Salvatore Brugaletta is a Senior Consultant Interventional Cardiologist with a large experience in coronary and structural heart disease (Intracoronary imaging, INOCA, complex heart disease, left main, bifurcation, STEMI, cardiogenic shock, TAVI, etc). Highly skilled in Clinical Research, Medical Education and Medical Devices with strong commitment inside medical communities. Two PhD focused on interventional cardiology from Erasmus University (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) and Sacred Heart University (Rome, Italy). He has authored around 380 manuscripts published in the peer-reviewed literature. Clinically, his interests include: preventive cardiology, acute coronary syndrome / angina, drug eluting metallic and bioresorbable stents, invasive coronary imaging and physiology and TAVI (Transcatheter aortic valve implantation).

Prof Andrew Sharp qualified from Edinburgh Medical School in 1998 and is Professor of Cardiology at the University Hospital of Wales and Cardiff University in the U.K. He conducted his early training at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, before moving to London for his senior clinical training. He completed the prestigious Milan-Imperial Interventional Cardiology Fellowship programme, having spent a year in San Raffaele and Columbus Hospitals, Milan, Italy, under the tutelage of Professor Antonio Colombo. He also spent three years training in interventional cardiology at Imperial College Hospitals in London. Prof Sharp was awarded an MD postgraduate research degree from the University of Edinburgh for his work on the hypertensive heart and his research interests include intracoronary imaging and physiology. as well as the use of device-based treatments for hypertension and pulmonary embolism.

Dr Giuseppe Colletti is a specialist in interventional cardiology at the Clinique Saint-Joseph in Arlon, Belgium where his focus is on developing and handling the complex PCI program. He did a fellowship in interventional cardiology at Hôpital Jolimont in La Louvrière, focusing on complex coronary lesions treatment with particular regards to calcified lesions, as well as at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège – Sart Tilman. He graduated from medical from the University of Palermo on 2010 and he specialized in cardiology at the University of Sassari in 2016. Dr Colletti has been a published author in peer-reviewed journals and is planning on publishing more in the future as he has been increasingly involved in clinical research.

Prof Javier Escaned is Head of Section (Interventional Cardiology Section) at Hospital Clinico San Carlos / Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). He trained in the United Kingdom as Specialist in Cardiology and obtained his PhD in The Netherlands. Author of >600 indexed scientific articles on interventional cardiology, imaging and physiology (h-index 74) and over 30 years of experience as PCI operator, he regularly lectures and performs live cases at major scientific and educational meetings. He is a recipient of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Silver Medal and the Andreas Grüntzig Award for his contributions to the fiedl fo Interventional Cardiology. Main areas of expertise include complex PCI, intracoronary diagnostics and functional coronary angiography. His track record in coronary physiology comprises being investigator on pioneer FFR trials like DEFER (1998), collaborator with Justin Davies in the validation and clinical implementation of iFR, and developer of new tools for the assessment of coronary microcirculation. Editorial roles include Deputy Editor EHJ, Advisory Editor Eurointervention, editor of the textbooks “Coronary Stenosis: Imaging, Structure and Physiology” and “Physiological Assessment of Coronary Stenoses and the Microcirculation". Recent board positions include EAPCI board / Education Committee Chair, ESC WG Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation, EuroCTO Board. Recent trials as Principal Investigator include ADVISE II, DEFINE FLAIR, SYNTAX II, PIONEER IV, Cerebral-Coronary-Connection (C3), DCR4Contrast, INOCA LongCovid and AID ANGIO. Additional interests are philosophy and music.

Laurie-Anne Boivin-Proulx is currently completing a Master in Interventional Cardiology and a PHD at the Hospital Clinical San Carlos, Madrid, with the goal of becoming a clinician-researcher with an interest in coronary physiology, microcirculation and women’s heart health. After her doctorate in medicine at the University of Sherbrooke (2016), she completed her residency in internal medicine (2020) and Cardiology (2023) at the University of Montreal, followed by a fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (2023). In addition to her medical training, she also completed a Master of Sciences (MSc) in Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan of Public Health (2021).

Dr Tim Schäufele is an interventional cardiologist with special interest in CTOs, coronary physiology and calcified lesions. He is owner of Kardiologie-Innenstad Bern private practice and Interventional Cardiologist at Lindenhofspital Bern. Prior to this, he served as Head of Cathlab and Interventional Cardiology at Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus Stuttgart, after serving as a Research Fellow in Cardiac Magnetic Imaging at the Department of Cardiology University Heidelberg. Dr Schäufele is a Co-Founding Member of Transradial Workingroup German Cardiac Society, a Board Member of the Interventional Working Group of the German Cardiac Society, and a Full Member EuroCTO Club.

Prof Javier Escaned is Head of Section (Interventional Cardiology Section) at Hospital Clinico San Carlos / Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). He trained in the United Kingdom as Specialist in Cardiology and obtained his PhD in The Netherlands. Author of >600 indexed scientific articles on interventional cardiology, imaging and physiology (h-index 74) and over 30 years of experience as PCI operator, he regularly lectures and performs live cases at major scientific and educational meetings. He is a recipient of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Silver Medal and the Andreas Grüntzig Award for his contributions to the fiedl fo Interventional Cardiology. Main areas of expertise include complex PCI, intracoronary diagnostics and functional coronary angiography. His track record in coronary physiology comprises being investigator on pioneer FFR trials like DEFER (1998), collaborator with Justin Davies in the validation and clinical implementation of iFR, and developer of new tools for the assessment of coronary microcirculation. Editorial roles include Deputy Editor EHJ, Advisory Editor Eurointervention, editor of the textbooks “Coronary Stenosis: Imaging, Structure and Physiology” and “Physiological Assessment of Coronary Stenoses and the Microcirculation". Recent board positions include EAPCI board / Education Committee Chair, ESC WG Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation, EuroCTO Board. Recent trials as Principal Investigator include ADVISE II, DEFINE FLAIR, SYNTAX II, PIONEER IV, Cerebral-Coronary-Connection (C3), DCR4Contrast, INOCA LongCovid and AID ANGIO. Additional interests are philosophy and music.