Science Committee

Barbara Casadei is a British Heart Foundation (BHF) Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust where she leads the Cardiovascular Theme of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre and is a Steering Committee member of the BHF Centre of Research Excellence.

Barbara graduated in Medicine (cum Laude) at the University of Pavia, Italy which awarded her the Medaglia Teresiana for academic merit, and moved to Oxford in 1989 to undertake her clinical and research training. She was awarded the Joan and Richard Doll Fellowship at Green College in 1991, a DPhil in Cardiovascular Medicine in 1995, and a BHF Senior Research Fellowship in 2001. She is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, holder of the highest honour of the British Cardiovascular Society (The Mackenzie Medal), and Immediate Past President (2020-22) of the European Society of Cardiology.

As Vice-President of the ESC, she established the Women in the ESC (WinESC) initiative, was responsible for the Society’s 5-yr Strategic Plan on Research, and initiated a partnership with the National Initiative on Gender, Culture and Leadership in Medicine, Brandeis University, US, and with the Said Business School of the University of Oxford (The Women Transforming Leadership Programme). As President of the ESC, she obtained the ESC Board’s support to start the ESC Patient Forum https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/What-we-do/esc-patient-engagement, whose members are now contributing to most ESC activities, and EuroHeart, an initiative supporting the assessment and improvement of quality of cardiovascular care in Europe https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehz599.

She provides a clinical service at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust’s John Radcliffe Hospital and leads a bench-to-bedside translational research programme, which spans from bench-based investigation in human tissue and cells to clinical trials.

Professor D. Prabhakaran is a cardiologist and epidemiologist by training. He is an internationally renowned researcher and is currently the Vice President- Research & Policy, Public Health Foundation of India, Executive Director of Centre for Chronic Disease Control, New Delhi, India and Professor (Epidemiology) London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. He heads the Centre for Control of Chronic Conditions at PHFI which is a joint initiative of four leading institutions (Public Health Foundation of India, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and Emory University). This centre conducts cutting edge research in the prevention of chronic diseases in India and the developing world.

His work spans from mechanistic research to understand the causes for increased propensity of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) among Indians, to developing solutions for CVD through translational research and human resource development. Prof. Prabhakaran is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, UK, Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, and an Adjunct Professor at the Emory University. He is member of Executive Council of the International Society of Hypertension (ISH) and Chair of the International Society of CVD Epidemiology and Prevention (ISCEP). He has received funding from NHLBI, Wellcome Trust, European Commission and several other international and national funding bodies. He has mentored over 50 post-doctoral and doctoral students so far. He has authored several chapters and over 500 scholarly papers with an H index of 97. Listed as the topmost researcher in Medicine in India terms of publications for the years 2009-2014 by Scopus and Department of Science & Technology, Government of India. He is the lead editor of the Cardiovascular Disease Volume of the latest Disease Control Priorities Project. He is the lead editor of Tandon’s text book of Cardiology a two volume comprehensive book on Cardiology for Indian Cardiologists and Fellows.

Amitava Banerjee is associate professor in clinical data science at University College London, and honorary consultant cardiologist at University College London Hospitals and Barts Health NHS Trusts. He is a researcher, educator and clinician with interests spanning data science, cardiovascular disease, global health, training and evidence-based healthcare, and more recently risk associated with underlying chronic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After qualifying from Oxford Medical School, he trained as a junior doctor in Oxford, Newcastle, Hull and London. His interest in preventive cardiology and evidence-based medicine led to a Masters in Public Health at Harvard (2004/05), an internship at the World Health Organisation (2005) and DPhil in epidemiology from Oxford (2010). He was clinical lecturer in cardiovascular medicine at the University of Birmingham, before moving to UCL in 2015.

He works across two busy tertiary care settings with both inpatient and outpatient commitments. Although he is subspecialised in heart failure, he has ongoing practice in acute general cardiology and a keen interest in the diagnosis and management of atrial fibrillation. His clinical work very much informs his research and vice versa, whether in the evaluation of medical technology, study of cardiovascular disease in under-served populations, disease phenotypes in electronic health records or now COVID-19.

Present Position: Professor in the Intensive Cardiac Therapy Department – National Institute of Cardiology, Warsaw, Poland.
Member of the Scientific Board in the National Institute of Cardiology in Warsaw since 2000.
Chair of the Scientific Board in the Institute of Mother and Child in Warsaw, since 2017.
Chair of the Steering Committee of the Strategic Programme of the National Centre for Research and Development – STRATEGMED: „Prevention practices and treatment of civilization diseases” since 2016.
President of the Polish Cardiac Society – Presidency 2011 – 2013.
Head of the Intensive Cardiac Therapy Department 1980 – 2019.
Head of Valvular Heart Department in the Institute of Cardiology 2003 – 2010.
World Heart Federation – Science Committee Member since 2019.
Associate Editor in Cardiology since 2019.
ESC activities: ESC Nominating Committee member 2018-2020. ESC Acute Cardiac Care Association Board Member 2014 – 2018. Member of the Congress Programme Committee (CPC) for the ESC Congress 2017 & 2018. Member of the nucleus of the WG Valvular Heart Disease 2006 – 2012. SACC ESC – reviewer for the accreditation of Educational Programmes in Cardiology. Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology since 2000.
Special area of interest and expertise: intensive cardiac care, acute coronary syndrome, acute heart failure, anticoagulation, antiplatelet, antithrombotic therapy, valvular heart diseases, infective endocarditis.
Publicatins:
Author or co- author of more than 200 pre-reviewed papers (168 in PubMed).
Co – author of ESC Guidelines on the management of Valvular heart disease (2012) and Guidelines on Acute and Chronic Heart Failure (2012). Reviewer of Guidelines on Management of Atrial Fibrillation (2010) and Guidelines for preoperative cardiac risk assessment and perioperative cardiac management in non-cardiac surgery, Valvular Heart Diseases (2016)

Dike Ojji graduated in 1995 from Nigeria’s premier university, University of Ibadan, and subsequently had his postgraduate training in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the University College Hospital, Ibadan and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Brisbane, Australia. He joined the young College of Health Sciences of University of Abuja as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Internal Medicine in 2014, and is also an Honorary Consultant Physician/Cardiologist, at University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, Abuja, Nigeria.  He is the Lead Investigator, Cardiovascular Research Unit, University of Abuja and University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria and the Co-Chair, Pan-African Society of Cardiology (PASCAR) Hypertension Task Force. His areas of interest include pharmacotherapy of hypertension especially in native Africans, spectrum of hypertensive heart disease, hypertensive heart failure, co-morbid risk factors in hypertension and echocardiography. He has over 67 manuscripts in PubMed central published in peer reviewed journals including those with high and very high impact factors like New England Journal of Medicine, American Heart Journal, European Journal Heart Failure, European Heart Journal, Journal Human Hypertension, Journal American Medical Association and the Lancet. Dike is a member of the 2014 Emerging Leaders cohort and Science Committee.

Kay-Tee Khaw MBBChir, MA, MSc, FRCP, FFPHM, FMedSci, CBE is a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge. She is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Gerontology, University of Cambridge UK, a post she held between 1989-2018. She trained in medicine at Girton College, University of Cambridge and St. Mary’s Hospital, London (now Imperial College) and in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with subsequent clinical and academic posts in the University of London and University of California San Diego.

Her research interests are the maintenance of health in later life and the causes and prevention of chronic diseases including cancer and cardiovascular disease with a focus on nutrition and hormones. She was principal investigator in the European Prospective Investigation in Cancer in Norfolk, part of a ten country half million participant research collaboration over two decades. She is a Clarivate Analytics highly cited researcher 2011-2020 and is a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, UK.