Speakers

Dr Rebecca Dobson is a Consultant Cardiologist at the Liverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Liverpool, Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital, in Liverpool, UK. She has a special interest in imaging and cardio-oncology.

Dr Dobson's research interests include cardio-oncology, cardiac imaging and advanced echocardiography, including chemotherapy-induced left ventricular systolic dysfunction, cardiac disease in cancer patients, carcinoid heart disease and heart valve disease.

Dr Dobson is a member of the British Cardiovascular Society, the British Cardio-Oncology Society, the British Society of Echocardiography and the Royal College of Physicians.

Dr Rebecca Dobson is Section Editor of European Cardiology Review.

Dr Lockie attended University College School, before training at Edinburgh University. He undertook an intercalated degree, gaining first class honours. After graduation, he worked in Edinburgh before moving to London for his specialist cardiology training.

With an interest in ischaemic heart disease, he undertook a PhD at King’s College, London, winning the Young Investigator prize, as well as presenting and publishing his work around the world.

He spent a year at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam undertaking further training in advanced percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI). He now works as a consultant interventional cardiologist at the Royal Free London.

Dr Lockie specialises in complex PCI, intravascular imaging and coronary physiology, and has an ongoing interest in research being the principle site investigator for several large studies.

He was appointed as clinical service lead for cardiology across all Royal Free London sites and associate professor of cardiology, Univeristy College London. He has also been elected as a fellow of the European Society of Cardiology.

Dr Sankaranarayanan (MBBS FRCP FESC FHFA PhD ) is a Consultant Cardiologist and Heart Failure Lead at Aintree University Hospital (Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Trust) as well as the Heart Failure Pathway Improvement Lead in the Cheshire and Merseyside ICB.

Dr Sankaranarayanan graduated from Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, India in 2002 and moved to the UK where underwent his residency and cardiology fellowship training at Manchester (Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester Royal Infirmary). He also undertook a British Heart Foundation funded PhD research project into heart failure and arrhythmogenesis.

He has won several awards including National Awards for innovations such as creating the Roy Award from HF Patient Charity Pumping Marvellous, creating UK’s 1^stNHS heart failure Mobile APP for patients, HSJ and BMJ Awards nomination for creating the world’s 1^st multi-speciality virtual heart failure MDT, leading the novel Aintree ambulatory acute heart failure unit and for patient education. He was chosen by the British Cardiac Society as one of the top 15 emerging leaders in 2018 and has been elected to the British Cardiac Society Digital Committee, British Society for HF (Digital and Medica  Committee). He was awarded a £240,000 NHSX grant and launched the country's 1^st acute heart failure virtual ward earlier this year. He is part of several expert panels (NHS England HF PIFU, NHS England GIRFT Committee, BSH Board)

He also has an active research role as NIHR Advanced Research Scholar and as Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Liverpool. He has acquired in >1million£ of research grants and is the PI of several multicentre research trials. He has >50 peer reviewed publications and has several ongoing international research collaborations.

Dr Elyas is a consultant stroke physician at the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and honorary senior clinical lecturer at the University Of Exeter Medical School.  He is the southwest peninsula clinical research network specialty lead for stroke. He has a special interest in risk prediction in stroke and TIA, Transcranial Doppler, cerebral small vessel disease and advanced imaging in stroke and neurovascular diseases. He completed his PhD research at the University of Exeter and published and presented his research in peer reviewed journals, national and international meetings and conferences. He is a member of the British and Irish Association of Stroke Physicians, European Stroke organization and World Stroke Congress. 

Brian is a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals, Guys’ and St Thomas’ NHS Trust and BHF Intermediate Fellow,. His research and clinical interests focus on the management of patients with cardiomyopathy and the use of cardiovascular magnetic resonance to improve treatment stratification. He aims to develop patient-centred, precision treatment approaches using targeted therapies and adaptable strategies guided by in-depth characterisation of the underlying dynamic disease substrate. He is particularly interested in the concepts of myocardial recovery and remission and methods to distinguish between the two.

Dr Claudia Montanaro is a consultant cardiologist with expertise in adult congenital heart disease and cardiac MRI. She is the founder and lead of the Adult Fontan Service at the Royal Brompton Hospital. She is part of the maternal service at the Royal Brompton Hospitals. Dr Montanaro senior honorary lecturer at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College. Dr Montanaro received her cardiology training at San Rafael University Hospital in Milan, where she was awarded honours. Subsequently she moved to the UK and received ACHD, congenital echo, general and congenital cardiac MRI training in London. Dr Montanaro is an associate editor for the International Journal of Cardiology and International Journal of Cardiology Congenital Heart Disease. She is also a reviewer for most major journals in the cardiovascular field. To date, she has authored several peer-reviewed publications, including papers in The Lancet, Circulation, and European Heart Journal. In addition to her publications, Dr Montanaro has written chapters for several highly regarded cardiology textbooks, including Adult Congenital Heart Disease: Diagnosis and Management, which is now in its fourth edition and is the world’s best-selling textbook in this growing cardiovascular sector. She has been recently invited at the Arab Health Healthcare conference in Dubai to represent UK innovation.

Dr Clare Appleby, MBChB (Hons), MA (Hons), FRCP, PhD. Consultant Cardiologist at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, specialising in coronary intervention and valve disease. After undergraduate at Cambridge and Manchester, I trained mainly in the North West and was awarded a BCIS Interventional Fellowship in Toronto, Canada. My PhD was focused on gene therapy for atherosclerosis, though now as an NHS consultant I am more interested in PCI and TAVI outcomes and I am PI for a number of multicentre PCI and TAVI trials, with an Honorary post at the University of Liverpool. I am Clinical Lead for Intervention, Director of the Cardiac Catheter Lab. Nationally I have roles with British Cardiovascular Interventional Society, BCS and Valve for Life.

Dr Hussain was appointed as a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital, Leicester in 2018 after completing her registrar training at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge. This was followed by an International fellowship when she was awarded the prestigious BCIS Interventional Fellowship at Toronto General Hospital, Canada. She is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester having undertaken a dedicated period of research culminating in a PhD awarded from King’s College, University of London. This has resulted in a number of peer-reviewed publications including as a major author on the MR-INFORM study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2019). Dr Hussain was selected for leadership training as part of inaugural cohort of the BCS Emerging Leaders Course and is an elected member of the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) Education committee and a course director for the BCS Early Consultant Careers Course. In addition, she is active and passionate about addressing the gender imbalance in Cardiology and is a leading member of the BCS and BCIS Women in Cardiology working groups and has developed many initiatives to increase representation.

I have worked in the NHS for 34 years, specialising in cardiac imaging, particularly echo, TOE and CTCA. I use my skills and experience daily within my busy clinical work as a cardiologist in a large district general hospital. I am a member of regional weekly MDMs for valve disease, which facilitates   effective communication with our surgical and interventional teams. In 2022 I set up and chair the regional endocarditis MDM and I also lead the Adult congenital heart disease and cardio oncology service. 

Emmanouil S. Brilakis, MD, PhD is Director of the Center for Complex Coronary Interventions at the Minneapolis Heart Institute and Chairman of the Center for Coronary Artery Disease at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation. He has authored or co-authored over 900 manuscripts and has written the Manual of Percutaneous Coronary Interventions and the Manual of CTO Interventions, now in its 3rd edition. He created the Manual of CTO interventions (https://www.ctomanual.org/ ) and Manual of PCI (https://www.pcimanual.org/) youtube series and websites. He is on the Board of the Cardiovascular Innovations Foundation, an associate editor for Circulation, section editor for Eurointervention and an editorial board member and reviewer for several journals and grant agencies.

MBBS, MD, MD (Res), FRCP, (UK), FACC, FESC Dr Rathore is an expert in the interventional techniques to treat coronary chronic total occlusion (antegrade and retrograde), Primary PCI, rotational atherectomy, left main stem PCI, IVUS, Optical Coherence Tomography, and Cardiac CT. He is a member of British Cardiovascular Society, and British Cardiovascular Intervention Society. He is also awarded reputed Fellowship of American College of Cardiology, and European Society of Cardiology for his contribution to the field of Cardiology. He is also a member of reputed European Chronic Total Occlusion Club and European Bifurcation Club. Dr Rathore has published over 80 peer review papers in medical journals, 5 book chapters and is a reviewer for several international cardiology journals (Journal of Interventional Cardiology, Coronary artery disease, Euro intervention, American Heart Journal, Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, SCAI, JACC, Cardiovascular Interventions), and serves as a member of editorial board (Journal of Interventional Cardiology, World Journal of Cardiology, Indian Heart Journal).

Dr Aaron Wong is a consultant cardiologist and general physician working in Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend, South Wales, United Kingdom. He is the local heart failure lead.

He qualified from University of Glasgow in 2001. He completed his MRCP (UK) in 2004 and take up a Cardiology Research Fellow post in University of Dundee in 2007. His research topic was “Insulin Resistance, Chronic Heart Failure and potential treatment modalities”. He was awarded Doctorate of Medicine (MD) and completed his higher specialty training in cardiology and general medicine (Dual CCT) in Wales in 2014.

He was awarded a Certificate of Advanced Study in Heart Failure (CAS) by University of Zurich in 2017, endorsed by the European Society of Cardiology

He was nominated as Fellow of the Royal College of Physician, London in 2018

He is passionate about teaching and medical education.  He received Clinical Teacher of the Year Award from University of Cardiff in 2019.  He holds an Honorary Lecturer post for Cardiff University.

His specialty interests are heart failure, diabetes, echocardiography and cardiometabolic disease.

He has a strong interest in research and is local principal investigator of a few multicentre clinical trials.

Rhys graduated with a Masters degree in Pharmacy from the University of Portsmouth and is currently employed as a cardiology pharmacist with Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board. Rhys' main passion lies with the management of Heart Failure, leading a nationally recognised pharmacist-led clinic, servicing the local population. He is also a member of the British Society for Heart Failure research committee and the European Society of Cardiology Digital Health and Patient Care Committee.