Science Committee

Prof. Dr. med. Stephan Achenbach graduated from Medical School at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany in 1993 and subsequently completed his training in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the associated university hospital. In 2002/2003, he was a research fellow at the Department of Radiology and Cardiology Division, Massachusetts General Hospital. Since 2012, he is the Chairman of the Department of Cardiology and Professor of Medicine at the University of Erlangen, Germany. His main clinical interests are interventional cardiology, general cardiology as well as cardiac imaging. His research is focused on cardiac interventions and cardiac imaging with a special focus on computed tomography of the heart and the use of imaging to support coronary and structural interventional procedures.
Stephan Achenbach was the Founding President of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography. He is the President of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) for the mandate 2020 to 2022. Academic awards include the Jan Brod Award for Clinical Research of the Medical School of Hannover, Germany (1999), the Thomas C. Cesario Distinguished Visiting Professorship Award, University of California Irvine School of Medicine (2007), the Simon Dack Award, American College of Cardiology (2009), the Gold Medal of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (2015), the Sir Godfrey Hounsfield Award of the British Institute of Radiology (2016), the Pioneer Award in Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, Society for Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (2019) and the Fritz Acker Award, German Society of Cardiology (2020). In 2017, he was selected by AuntMinnie.com as the “Most Influential Radiology Researcher” and he has repeatedly received the 1st Prize Best Teaching Award, Clinical Medicine, Medical Faculty of the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

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.