Cardiovascular Clinical Academic Group
St. George's, University of London
St. George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Sanjay Sharma is Professor of cardiology and head of research for the clinical academic group at St George’s University of London and St George’s NHS Foundation trust. His research interests include sudden cardiac death in the young, heart muscle disease and cardiovascular adaptation in athletes for which he has developed an international reputation culminating in over 240 PubMed citations and authorship of numerous textbooks. He regularly lectures at major scientific meetings and is considered a world leader in his field.
Professor Sharma leads a large tertiary inherited cardiac diseases programme serving South East England to manage young patients with cardiomyopathy and ion channel diseases. He is the director for the largest sports cardiology unit in the UK which is responsible for athletes with potentially serious cardiac diseases including amateurs but also professionals from a number of sporting organizations including the English Football Association, rugby league, Lawn Tennis Association, English Institute of Sport, Team GB Rowing and Team Sky cycling. He is the medical director of the London marathon and has been commended for providing one of the best medical services for endurance events in the world. Professor Sharma is also the chairman of the expert cardiology consensus panel for the English Football Association and for the 2012 London Olympics, he was appointed lead cardiologist. Until recently, he was chairman of the ESC sports cardiology nucleus and congress programme committee member of the European Society of Cardiology and the European Association of Preventive Cardiology.
Working with the charitable organisation, Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) for the past 20 years, Professor Sharma leads the largest cardiac screening programme in the UK for individuals aged 14-35 years old. The charity screens over 20,000 individuals each year from which several data sets have been developed to provide an estimate of the number of young individuals dying suddenly from unsuspected heart disease and offer strategies to prevent such tragedies. His role in promoting the detection of cardiac disease in the young has been recognised within the British government where he gives an annual address at the CRY Parliamentary Meeting.
Professor Sharma leads a large research group based at St.George’s, University of London and the publications generated from his expertise have helped further our understanding of the athlete’s heart on a global scale. Not only has he contributed to European scientific position statements and recommendations for sporting participation in athletes with cardiac disease, but he was lead author of the international recommendations for the interpretation of the athlete’s ECG that were co-published in EHJ and JACC in 2017. His reputation as a world-renowned leader in this subject has most recently been highlighted by reporting the outcomes of screening adolescent athletes in NEJM, which has helped shape screening policies of sporting organizations in the UK and beyond.
University of Padova, Italy
Full Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Cardiac Thoracic and vascular Sciences, University of Padova
Director of the Inherited Arrhythmic Cardiomyopathy Unit, School of Cardiology of the University of Padova
Director of the Master Course in Sports Cardiology, University of Padova
Past-President Section of Sports Cardiology of the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation – European Society of Cardiology
Past-Chairman of the Italian Society of Sports Cardiology
More than 350 peer-reviewed publications in International Cardiological Journals and official reviewer of the majority of Cardiological Journals
Invited Faculty to Major European and North-American Centres and Symposia.
Fellow and Member of Italian and European Societies of Cardiology.
Cardiovascular Clinical Academic Group
St. George's, University of London
St. George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Papadakis is an Assoc Professor in Cardiology at St George’s, University of London. He is the president-elect for the European Association of Preventive Cardiology and the past chair of the European section of Sports Cardiology and Exercise. He is consultant to the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young, English Institute of Sport, English and Wales Cricket Board and Rugby Football Union. His interests include sports cardiology, inherited cardiac diseases, cardiovascular disease prevention including prevention of sudden cardiac death in young and athletic individuals, heart failure and cardiac imaging. Dr Papadakis is currently credited with more than 100 publications in peer reviewed medical journals and numerous presentations in national and international conferences. He has contributed to international projects, including the creation of the Sports Cardiology curriculum, the criteria for the interpretation of the athlete’s ECG and the exercise guidelines in individuals with heart disease. In 2016 he launched a novel MSc degree in Sports Cardiology.
Institute of Sport Medicine and Science CONI, Rome, Italy
Chief of Cardiology of the Institute of Sports Medicine of the Italian National Olympic Committee.
Area of Expertise
Assessment of left ventricular hypertrophy and cardiac remodelling induced by exercise conditioning and deconditioning.
Criteria of differential diagnosis of athlete’s heart from structural cardiac disease. Implementation and methods of preparticipation screening for cardiovascular disease at risk of sudden death in athletic populations.
Clinical management of athletes with cardiovascular diseases.
Academic Appointments
Professor of Patho-physiology in Sports Medicine, at Post-Graduate School in Sports Medicine La Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
Adjunct Professor at the Tuft University, Cardiology Department, Boston, MA
Publications
Author of over 200 papers published on peer-reviewed journals (including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal American Medical Association, Circulation, Journal American College of Cardiology, American Journal of Cardiology, European Heart Journal, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, International Journal of Sport Medicine).
Reviewer
Reviewer for the journals: The Journal of American Medical Association, Circulation, The Journal of American College of Cardiology, the American Journal of Cardiology, European Heart Journal, European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise; International Journal of Sport Medicine.
Director of the UW Medicine Center for Sports Cardiology at the University of Washington
Dr. Jonathan Drezner is a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Director of the UW Medicine Center for Sports Cardiology at the University of Washington (Seattle, WA – USA). He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and he is Team Physician for the Seattle Seahawks (NFL), Seattle Reign (NWSL), and the University of Washington. Dr. Drezner is past-President of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM, 2012-13) and Director of the Division for Cardiac Injury in Sport for the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. Dr. Drezner has dedicated his career to the prevention of sudden cardiac arrest and death (SCA/D) in young athletes and the development of effective models for prevention. His primary research has focused on the incidence and etiology of SCA/D, cardiovascular screening and ECG interpretation in athletes, and emergency response planning and the use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in the school and athletic settings.
Dr. Drezner chaired or co-chaired several fundamental consensus statements to advance the cardiovascular care of athletes including: the 2007 inter-association task force on emergency preparedness and the management of sudden cardiac arrest in high school and college athletic programs; the 2016 AMSSM position statement on cardiovascular screening in athletes; and the 2013 Seattle Criteria and 2017 International Criteria for ECG interpretation in athletes which emerged as contemporary standards to distinguish physiologic ECG findings from abnormalities suggestive of a pathologic cardiac disorder. He is currently co-PI and founder of the Outcomes Registry for Cardiac Conditions in Athletes (ORCCA) study designed to monitor health outcomes in competitive athletes diagnosed with pathologic cardiac disorders. Dr. Drezner has presented his research in sports cardiology both nationally and internationally and has over 210 peer-reviewed publications: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Drezner+J&sort=date
General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts
Dr. Meagan M. Wasfy MD MPH is a sports cardiologist in the Cardiovascular Performance Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. She trained in internal medicine and cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Wasfy’s clinical practices focuses on the cardiovascular care of athletic and active individuals and on echocardiography. Dr. Wasfy is also active in research, with a focus on the use of cardiac imaging to characterize exercise-induced cardiac remodeling and the specific question of how to better distinguish between cardiac enlargement due to exercise versus that due to cardiac disease.
Cardiovascular Clinical Academic Group
St. George's, University of London
St. George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Finocchiaro completed his undergraduate training and qualified from Trieste University (Italy) in 2007. He completed his fellowship in Cardiology in Trieste in April 2012, with particular interest in cardiomyopathies. He then spent one year at Stanford University (CA, US), focusing on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and athlete’s heart, gaining a post-doctoral diploma in 2013. Subsequently he worked at The Heart Hospital imaging center (London) learning about cardiovascular magnetic resonance. He recently completed his PhD at St George’s University of London, publishing several papers in the field of cardiomyopathies and sports cardiology. He is now consultant cardiologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London. His main fields of interest are sudden cardiac death, cardiomyopathies and cardiac adaptation to exercise.
Emory Healthcare, United States of America
Dr. Kim is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Founding Director of Sports Cardiology in the Division of Cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine and additionally holds an adjunct Professorship in the School of Applied Physiology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his Bachelor of Science at Emory and was a Fulbright Scholar before attending Vanderbilt Medical School. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine & Pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital and cardiology fellowship at Emory (chief fellow 2013-14). In addition to his clinical role, Dr. Kim conducts NIH-funded (current R01) sports cardiology research at Emory. He is the Team Cardiologist for the Atlanta Falcons, Braves, Hawks, and Dream, and for Sports Medicine at Emory and Georgia Tech. Dr. Kim is a member of the NBA Cardiac Advisory Committee and NFL Cardiovascular Task Force. He is the Co-Medical Director for the AJC Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Kim is the current Chair for the American College of Cardiology’s Sports and Exercise Cardiology Council.
University of Padova, Italy
Short bio: Dr Alessandro Zorzi, MD, PhD is assistant professor of cardiology, Department of cardiac, thoracic and vascular sciences, and public health; university of Padova and consultant cardiologist at the azienda ospedaliera-università Hospital, Padova, italy”. His main clinical activities and scientific interests are clinical electrophysiology and sports cardiology. He is fellow of the European Society of Cardiology and member of the board of the Italian Sports Cardiology Society. He is co-author of 150 publications in journals with impact factors. Dr Alessandro Zorzi, MD, PhD is assistant professor of cardiology, Department of cardiac, thoracic and vascular sciences, and public health; university of Padova and consultant cardiologist at the azienda ospedaliera-università Hospital, Padova, italy”. His main clinical activities and scientific interests are clinical electrophysiology and sports cardiology. He is fellow of the European Society of Cardiology and member of the board of the Italian Sports Cardiology Society. He is co-author of 150 publications in journals with impact factors.
My affiliation: Department of cardiac, thoracic and vascular sciences and public health; university of Padova, Italy.
Istituto Auxologico Italiano IRCCS Department of Cardiomyopathy and Cardiac Arrhythmias of Genetic Origin Milan
Dr. Castelletti graduated in Medicine cum laude at the University of Pavia, where she has also passed the board examination cum laude and became a Specialist in Cardiology. She then moved to London for a fellowship in cardiomyopathies and cardiac MRI imaging at the University College of London. Currently she is a Cardiologist Consultant at the IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano of Milan in the Department of Cardiomyopathy and Cardiac Arrhythmias of Genetic Origin. Her interests include prevention of sudden cardiac death, sports cardiology, inherited cardiac diseases, genetics. She is an ESC Fellow, nucleus member of the Sports Cardiology Section of the EAPC, of the Italian Society of Sports Cardiology and of the working group of Inherited Cardiac Disorder of the Italian Society of Cardiology, board member of the ESC Committee for Young Cardiovascular Professional as representative of the YC of the ESC WG on Myocardial and Pericardial Diseases, chair of the EAPC Membership Committee, Social Media Editor of the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, ESC Social Media Editor leader.
National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial
College and Royal Brompton Hospital, London
Sabiha works as a full-time consultant cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London in the Inherited Cardiac conditions service and CMR imaging unit and is the lead for the Sports Cardiology service.
Sabiha continues her work as a CRY Cardiologist and is an active member of the CRY pre-participation screening programme in athletes. She has successfully published her work on mechanisms in Left ventricular Hypertrabeculation in Circulation journal. Her other peer-reviewed publications include work relating to Left ventricular hypertrabeculation in Athletes published in Heart, and ECG guidelines in athletes, published in European Heart Journal and recently aortic dimension in athletes in Heart. She also co-authored a land-mark study on cardiac screening in adolescent athletes in the NEJM. More recently, Sabiha is a member of the EAPC sports cardiology section nucleus and has also been a member of the expert task force for the ESC guidelines in sports cardiology and exercise in individuals with cardiovascular diseases. She has presented in several plenary sessions at the ESC, EuroEcho, EuroPrevent and ACC. Sabiha worked as the Deputy Editor for education and training for the EHJ-Case Reports and was also the Section Editor for the EAPC sports cardiology quizzes. She is currently leading on the certification program for ESC Preventive Cardiology.
Wythenshawe Hospital and Manchester Royal Infirmary
Dr. Aneil Malhotra PhD, MB, BChir, MA (Cantab), MRCP (UK), MSc (Medical Leadership). Aneil is the Presidential senior lecturer at the University of Manchester and consultant cardiologist at Wythenshawe and Manchester Royal Infirmary Hospitals.
He graduated from the University of Cambridge (Emmanuel College) in 2006 and having spent time at both M.I.T. and Harvard Universities in Boston, he spent his Foundation years working in Cambridge (UK) and Papworth before moving to Oxford to continue his specialist training in cardiology. Along the way, he completed a Masters in Medical Leadership at the Royal College of Physicians (2013). He completed his PhD in inherited heart diseases and sports cardiology at St. George’s University of London where he was subsequently appointed NIHR Clinical Lecturer.
Aneil’s research areas include investigating the electrical, structural and functional features of the adolescent athlete’s heart with data derived from analysing the Football Association’s cardiac screening programme, the largest of its kind for elite junior athletes in Europe. His work has achieved Young Investigator Award and best abstract prizes at international conferences including ESC Update 2019, ESC 2017, ACC 2016 and EACP 2015. He has a keen interest in medical education and has been an examiner and tutor for the Royal College of Physicians for the MRCP Part 2 (2014-2017) as well as a Module lead and Admissions Tutor for the MSc in Sports Cardiology at St. George’s University of London.
Aneil is the European Association of Preventative Cardiology young ambassador for the UK. He has over 80 peer-reviewed publications and has co-authored and contributed to books in cardiology and medicine. His ongoing research interests include sudden cardiac death in black athletes who exhibit more T-wave inversion and left ventricular hypertrophy than white athletes.
As an academic clinician in inherited cardiac conditions and MRI, Aneil aims to balance scientific rigour and workplace-based application to patients within the NHS healthcare system and influence clinical practice on a national level and beyond.
professor of medicine and sports science at the University of Lausanne.
Dr. Aaron L. Baggish is the founder of the Cardiovascular Performance Program (CPP) at Harvard Medical School and now professor of medicine and sports science at the University of Lausanne. He has served as medical director for the Boston Marathon and cardiology/team physician consultant for numerous organizations including the IOC, FIFA, World Rowing, Trek-Lidl Cycling, NFL & MLS Player’s Association, UOSPC, US Soccer, and US Rowing. He has published more than 300 original peer reviewed research articles and serves on the editorial boards of multiple journals including Circulation and Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise.
President of Sports & Performance Cardiology in Chevy Chase
Dr. Ankit B. Shah is President of Sports & Performance Cardiology in Chevy Chase, MD and Associate Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Dr. Shah earned his B.A from Boston College with a degree in Economics and his M.D. and M.P.H. from Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed his training in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, fellowship in cardiovascular disease at Lenox
Hill Hospital and fellowship in sports cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is sports cardiology consultant for MedStar Health and team cardiologist for USA Swimming. He is on the ACC Sports & Exercise Leadership Council and on the editorial lead for the Sports & Exercise Cardiology section for ACC.org. Dr. Shah was the founding director of the sports cardiology program for MedStar Health and served as team cardiologist/sports cardiology consultant for the Baltimore Orioles, Washington Mystics, Washington Capitals and Baltimore Ravens
Director of Sports Cardiology Program at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney
Prof Belinda Gray is a Cardiologist and Director of Sports Cardiology Program at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia. She specialises in sports and genetic cardiology. She is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney. She is a Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow and current chair of the CSANZ Genetic Council. She completed her PhD at the University of Sydney, and fellowship training in inherited cardiac conditions and sports cardiology at St George’s, University of London, UK. She has published in high impact factor journals including Circulation, JAMA cardiology and JACC and is an author on international guidelines in genetic heart disease/genetic testing in athletes. Her research focuses on genetics, risk stratification and prevention of sudden cardiac death in the young, including young athletes.
Medical Director of the Coronary Anomalies Program and Associate Chief for the Division of Cardiology at Texas Children’s Hospital
Silvana Molossi, MD, PhD, graduated from Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil and completed a clinical and research fellowship in pediatric cardiology at the Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. She received a doctorate in Pathology and Cardiovascular Sciences from the University of Toronto. She served as a Professor of Pediatrics on the School of Medicine of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where she supervised graduate students in the Master Program for Pediatrics and Cardiology. She served for 7 years as the Chief of the Pediatric Cardiology Division and Cardiac Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Complexo Hospitalar Santa Casa, Porto Alegre, Brazil. She joined Baylor College of Medicine as Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Cardiology, Texas Children’s Hospital, in March 2011. She has been involved in screening young athletes for conditions known to be high risk for sudden cardiac death for over 15 years and holds the Vice President of Science and Research position for the Championship Hearts Foundation and is a member of the Medical Advisory Board for the National Coronary Anomalies Foundation, non-profit organizations. She has served as the Co-Chair of the Sports and Exercise Cardiology Council and Section for the American College of Cardiology from 2013-2016. In the past 12 years, she established the first Coronary Artery Anomalies Program in the US dedicated to the care of young individuals with coronary artery anomalies, particularly anomalous aortic origin of a coronary artery (AAOCA), a leading cause of sudden death in the youth. She also has co-founded the International Coronary Artery Anomalies Collaborative (ICAAC) group, engaged in several projects related to coronary artery anomalies. She serves as the Medical Director of the Coronary Anomalies Program and Associate Chief for the Division of Cardiology at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Sports Cardiologist and Electrophysiologist at Macquarie University and Concord Hospitals in Sydney
Prof Hari Raju developed specialist knowledge of the niche area of sports cardiology and the athlete’s heart over many years at St George’s University (London, UK) under the aegis of Prof Sanjay Sharma (former President of the Sports Cardiology Nucleus of the European Society of Cardiology). This was supported by subsequent arrhythmia training fellowships at premiere international institutions (St Thomas’ and St George’s Hospitals, London and Royal Melbourne Hospital, Australia) focusing on heart rhythm disorders, which included progressive expertise in bradycardia and pacemakers as well as interventional electrophysiology. These areas remain as primary focus of his clinical and academic practice as a Sports Cardiologist and Electrophysiologist at Macquarie University and Concord Hospitals in Sydney, where he arrived in 2017.
Cardiology registrar practicing at Mater Dei Hospital
Dr Mark Abela MD (Melit) MRCP (London) MSc Internal Medicine (Edinburgh) MSc Sports Cardiology (London) FESC
Dr Mark Abela is a Cardiology registrar practicing at Mater Dei Hospital. He has finished specialty training in Cardiology and has undergone a fellowship in Sports Cardiology and Inherited Cardiac Conditions at St George’s Hospital in London. His main academic and clinical interests are athletic cardiac adaptation, cardiac screening, inherited cardiac conditions and cardiac rehabilitation.
He is a University of Malta Graduate, having obtained his MD in 2011. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London and is also an MSc Graduate from the University of Edinburgh. As part of his subspecialty training, he embarked on an MSc in Sports Cardiology (St George’s University, London). Thanks to funding by RIDT and the Malta Heart Foundation, he was able to set up BEAT-IT, a landmark national cardiac screening program in Maltese adolescents. He was subsequently awarded a distinction for his MSc. With his growing exposure and expertise in this very specific area of cardiology, he made it a point to bring about change and provide high quality care to this unique subgroup in Malta. This led to the launch of the Sports Cardiology Clinic at Mater Dei Hospital, for which he is now the clinical lead. At present, he is also running the Inherited Arrhythmia Clinic, Cardiogenetics, and Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing services, whilst also evaluating patients in the Cardiomyopathy clinic. He is also the designated cardiologist for several institutions including the Malta Football Association, Malta Olympic Committee and the Aquatic Sports Association of Malta. He is also a Lieutenant within the Armed Forces of Malta, leading the cardiac screening program for military recruits.
From an academic perspective, he has published in several journals and has been asked to present at several international conferences. He is on the editorial board for the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology and the European Heart Journal of Case Reports. He is currently reading for a PhD in Medicine with the University of Malta, awarded a full research scholarship by RIDT. He has also been appointing
content reviewer (on behalf of the Maltese Cardiac Society) for several ESC position papers (cardiovascular prevention and sports cardiology).
He is actively involved within the EAPC branch of the ESC. He is a member of the Sports Cardiology and Exercise Nucleus. He is the national ambassador for Preventive Cardiology within the ESC. He is an advisor to the ESC for occupational cardiology.
He is actively involved in teaching. He is an honorary senior lecturer at St George’s University of London, actively involved in the MSc Sports Cardiology. He is also actively teaching locally as a visiting lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, and at the Malta Medical School. He has also made it a point to educate doctors and allied health care professionals about cardiac screening, sports cardiology and inherited cardiac conditions. He routinely participates in webinars and local conferences, to help increase awareness about heart disease in young individuals. He hopes that these initiatives will increase awareness and pave the way for more research projects pertaining to inherited cardiac conditions in Malta.
Dr Cléa Colombo completed her Medical degree, followed by a Cardiology Specialisation at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), São Paulo, Brazil. She holds Postgraduate degrees in Exercise Physiology from the University of São Paulo and in Sports Medicine from the Federal University of São Paulo. Certified in Cardiology, Ergometry, and Cardiac Rehabilitation by the Brazilian Society of Cardiology (SBC) since 1997 and in Sports Medicine by the Brazilian Society of Exercise and Sports Medicine (SBMEE) since 2008, she worked at the Olympic Village Polyclinic during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
In 2017, she began an MSc in Sports Cardiology at St. George’s University of London (UK), graduating with merit in 2019. She also completed advanced training in Sports Cardiology at the Institute of Sports Medicine and Science (CONI) in Rome (Italy) in 2018. Dr Colombo served as President and is currently the Scientific Director of the Sports Cardiology Study Group of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology. She has contributed to guidelines, consensus publications, book chapters, and journals in Cardiology and Sports medicine.
She is an Associate Professor at São Leopoldo Mandic Faculty in Campinas, responsible for the Sports Cardiology Clinic and the Sports Medicine course for the Medical School. She is a FESC, EAPC Silver Member, SBC, SBMEE associated and frequent speaker at conferences and postgraduate courses in Brazil.
Dr Colombo specializes in cardiopulmonary testing and cardiac screening for male and female athletes in amateur and professional football clubs in the state of São Paulo, as well as adolescent and adult basketball players, handball players, swimmers, track and field athletes, kung fu practitioners, runners, cyclists, and triathletes. Her primary area of interest is in studying the hearts of female athletes and adolescents.
Dr Coats, a graduate of Imperial College School of Medicine, is a Consultant Cardiologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. She completed a Masters in Sport and Exercise Medicine alongside cardiology training and has led the West of Scotland Inherited Cardiac Conditions service since 2018. As Lead Clinician for the National ICC Network, she has played a pivotal role in guiding development of hub and spoke services in Scotland. Her clinical research centres on genetics, biomarkers, and imaging with a focus on diagnosis and treatment of cardiomyopathy. She holds a Career Researcher Fellowship from the Chief Scientific Office and is Principal Investigator on several global clinical trials.
Dimitra Antonakaki graduated with honors from the Medical University of Athens in Greece. She completed her Medical and Cardiology training and obtained her CCT in London. She subsequently subspecialized in Inherited Cardiac Conditions and multimodality Cardiovascular Imaging at Barts Heart Centre, London. During this time, she obtained a competitive scholarship from St George’s University of London to study the Sports Cardiology MSc and graduated with distinction. She has sat on the UK National Association of Inherited Cardiac Conditions (AICC) Council as the trainee representative. She has been a Consultant Cardiologist in Inherited Cardiac Conditions at the John Radcliffe University Hospital in Oxford and she is currently a Consultant Cardiologist in Inherited Cardiac Conditions, Cardiac MRI and Sports Cardiology at the National Heart & Lung Transplant Centre, “Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center” in Greece. In addition, Dimitra is an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at St George’s University of London where she is the Lead of the Advanced Management and Genomics of Inherited Cardiac Conditions MSc module.
Dr. Chung earned his AB at Harvard College, MSc at the University of Edinburgh (Social Policy/Policy Studies), and MD at Jefferson Medical College (Philadelphia, PA). He then completed all post medical school training at the Lahey Clinic (Burlington, MA). In 2008, he joined the EP faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Over the next 9 years, he performed a broad range of EP and served as UNC’s first team cardiologist. In 2017, he was recruited to the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) to direct expansion of EP services in West Michigan. He led the opening of three new EP labs and was appointed Associate Medical Director for the Cardiovascular Network of West Michigan. He was also Director of the Sports Cardiology Clinic and Team Cardiologist for Michigan Athletics and several other universities and professional teams throughout Michigan. While at UM, he was promoted to Clinical Professor and completed a Master in Public Health (MPH) in Population Health Science and a Certificate in Health Care Finance.
In addition to his clinical work in electrophysiology and sports cardiology, Dr Chung has maintained research interests in ECG screening and arrhythmias in athletes. He has been active in the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) and American College of Cardiology (ACC), serving as Vice-Chair of the 2024 HRS consensus statement on arrhythmias in athletes and 2020-23 Chair of the ACC Sports and Exercise Cardiology Leadership Council. He is also on the Sports Science and Safety Committee for USA Lacrosse.
Since joining Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA) in November 2023, Dr Chung continues to practice both clinical EP and sports cardiology. He is the inaugural Director of the Sports Electrophysiology Clinic in the Cardiovascular Performance Program (CPP), which provides comprehensive cardiovascular care for athletes and high active individuals of all levels.
Dr Matthew Martinez is director of Sports Cardiology and Director of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy program at Morristown Medical Center, Atlantic Health System in New Jersey. Dr. Martinez serves as a cardiology consultant for Major League Soccer, NBA player association, NHL combine and is the team cardiologist for the New York Jets. He regularly presents on Sports Cardiology and Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy at national and international meetings and served as the American College of Cardiology’s Chair of Sports and Exercise section until 2020.
Mihnea Casian is a cardiology fellow in Inherited Cardiac Conditions Clinic, St. George’s University Hospital, London, and a PhD student of the Department of Cardiology in Bucharest (Prof. Dr. C. C. Iliescu; Emergency Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases, Bucharest and Expert Center for Rare Genetic Cardiovascular Diseases). He is passionate about inherited cardiac conditions, sports cardiology and understanding sudden cardiac death. As he won a grant from the Romanian Society of Cardiology, he chose to train in Inherited Cardiac Conditions Clinic and Sports Cardiology at St. George’s University Hospital London, where his clinical practice and research activity revolve around athletes, individuals with cardiomyopathies and families of sudden cardiac death victims. Mihnea is part of the Media Taskforce of the ESC Council on Cardiovascular Genomics and EACVI HIT Education Taskforce.
Dr Lampert is the Robert Berliner Professor of Medicine in Cardiology/Electrophysiology, and Director of Sports Cardiology at Yale Medical School. Clinically, her focus is on care of athletes with potentially arrhythmogenic cardiovascular disorders and identification through ECG screening. Her research interests include the impact of sports and exercise on arrhythmias in athletes with cardiovascular disease, and decision-making for these athletes. Recent studies include the NIH-funded LIVE-HCM and LIVE-LQTS, parallel observational prospective registries looking at impact of vigorous exercise on arrhythmic outcomes, across the life-span from children to the middle-aged, in individuals with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and the Long QT Syndrome.
Dr Lampert went to medical school at Vanderbilt, then did residency and chief residency at Bellevue/NYU. She did cardiology and electrophysiology fellowship at Yale.
Dr Saran K Marwaha is a London based Cardiologist that specialises in multimodality cardiac imaging, inherited cardiac conditions and sports cardiology. Her PHD research was based on non-invasive investigations and analysis of athletes with dilated hearts.
- Head of the Heart, Exercise and Research Trials (HEART) Lab, St Vincent’s Institute and Victor Chang Cardiovascular Research Institute - Cardiologist and Head of Cardiovascular Research, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne
André completed a PhD at St Vincent’s / University of Melbourne and 4 years of post-doctoral research at the University Hospital of Leuven, Belgium. His research and clinical work focuses on the effect of exercise on the human heart. He studies the range of health from severe heart and lung disease to elite athletic performance.
André heads the National Centre for Sports Cardiology that comprises a young team of multi-disciplinary researchers based at the HEART Lab, supported by St Vincent’s Institute and the Victor Chang Cardiovascular Research Institute. He has pioneered novel imaging techniques including exercise cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and contrast echocardiography. He has more than 300 peer-review publications and text-book chapters, serves on multiple international guideline statements and is regularly invited to present at all major international cardiology conferences.
Flavio D’Ascenzi is an Associate Professor in Sports Cardiology at the University of Siena. He graduated in Medicine in 2008 at the University of Siena, where he obtained a post-degree specialization in Cardiology in 2014. He obtained a PhD in Medicine at the University of Umea in Sweden. His clinical and research activities are mainly dedicated to Sports Cardiology, with a focus on sudden cardiac death, cardiomyopathies, channelopathies, and exercise prescription. He is the Head of the Sports Cardiology and Rehab Unit of the University of Siena and is the Director of the Postgraduate School in Sports Medicine & Exercise. Currently, he is the Chair-elect of the European Nucleus of Sports Cardiology and Exercise of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology. He is the author and co-author of more than 180 papers on cardiology and sports cardiology and is co-author of expert consensus and recommendations on the management of athletes with cardiovascular disorders.
Hanne Rasmusen, associate professor, PhD, MSci in Sports cardiology, consultant cardiologist, former Nucleus member and Secretary of Sports cardiology section, European Cardiology Society (ESC) (2010-16), scientifically topic: short and longterm cardiac remodelling during elite sports and reverse remodelling after end of career. Clinically experience from more than 15 years in a Sports cardiology clinic at the Department of Cardiology, Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, Copenhagen in Denmark.
Hanne Rasmusen, associate professor, PhD, MSci in Sports cardiology, consultant cardiologist, former Nucleus member and Secretary of Sports cardiology section, European Cardiology Society (ESC) (2010-16), scientifically topic: short and longterm cardiac remodelling during elite sports and reverse remodelling after end of career. Clinically experience from more than 15 years in a Sports cardiology clinic at the Department of Cardiology, Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, Copenhagen in Denmark.
Past President, European Association of Preventive Cardiology
Martin Halle, MD is Professor and Medical Director of the Department of Preventive Sports Medicine and Sports Cardiology at the University Hospital of Technical University Munich since 2003. With his team, he looks after more than 10,000 patients per year, from couch potatoes to Olympic champions.
The specialist in sports medicine, cardiology, internal medicine and sports cardiology, is one of the best-known preventive physicians in Germany, internationally one of the leading scientists in his field of research – the prevention and rehabilitation of cardiovascular and kidney diseases and cancer through exercise training. Martin Halle was President of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology (EAPC) in 2020-2022 and is currently the program coordinator for Preventive Cardiology for the upcoming ESC congress in London 2024.
Prof.dr.Ruxandra JURCUT is a professor of cardiology at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila”, Bucharest, Romania. She is the coordinator of the Expert Center for Rare Genetic Cardiovascular Diseases from the Emergency Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases “Prof.dr.C.C.Iliescu”, member of the European Reference Network for Rare and Low Prevalence Cardiac diseases GUARD-Heart. She is a co-author of the ESC Guidelines for the Management of Cardiomyopathies published in 2023. She also has a large expertise in echocardiography and other cardiac imaging techniques, being for the last 10 years a member of the EACVI Research Committee, with many publications linking multimodality imaging to genetic cardiac diseases.
Viviana Maestrini is an Associate Professor in Cardiology at the Department of Clinical, Internal, Anesthesiologic and Cardiovascular Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome. She is also a Consultant Cardiologist at the Institute of Sport Medicine, National Italian Olympic Committee, in Rome where she leads the CMR program for athletes. Her research interests focus on cardiovascular imaging including advanced echocardiography and TOE and CMR.
Preventing young sudden cardiac deaths through awareness, screening and research, and supporting affected families.
Head Office:
Unit 1140B, The Axis Centre,
Cleeve Road, Leatherhead,
Surrey KT22 7RD
Tel: 01737 363222
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Email: [email protected]
Registered Charity in England & Wales (1050845) & in Scotland (SC052581)
