Interventional Cardiology

I am British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and a Consultant Cardiologist at Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust. I joined The University of Manchester in April 2013 as Director of the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences. I was a preclinical student at the University of St. Andrews and qualified in medicine from Oxford in 1988. Following junior clinical posts, I was an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at Oxford from 1993 to 1996. I completed training in clinical cardiology and set up my own scientific group in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Oxford 1997-2000 under the mentorship of Hugh Watkins. In 2001 I moved to a Senior Lectureship at Newcastle University, where I founded the Molecular Cardiovascular Research Group. I led the group 2001-2012 as it grew from one PI to nine (including five Chairs and three Programme Grants). I was awarded a BHF Personal Chair in 2008. I have been an active clinical cardiologist throughout my scientific career. Between 2001 and 2013 I practiced as a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist; during most of this time my personal procedure volumes were in the top 10% of all operators nationally. Presently, my clinical focus is on inherited cardiovascular diseases where I am part of an integrated service for affected patients and their families provided with colleagues in Clinical Cardiology and the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine.

My main research interest is in the genetics of complex cardiovascular diseases. Among contributions my colleagues and I have made to this field are: the first demonstration of limited haplotype diversity over long distances in the human genome (1996); the first success in trans-ethnic fine mapping of a complex genetic trait in man (1998); the first large-scale genetic studies of myocardial infarction (2000-2004); the introduction of the approach known as “Mendelian Randomisation” into genetic epidemiology (2001); several large-scale meta-analyses of genetic associations with myocardial infarction (2005-2008); demonstration of the mechanism involved in the association between MI and its strongest common genetic risk factor (polymorphisms at CDKN2B-AS1 [2010]); demonstration of association between copy number variants in the human genome and sporadic congenital heart disease (2012) and the first published genome-wide association studies of congenital heart disease (2013). My group are now chiefly interested in understanding the functional biology underlying some of the many genetic associations with complex cardiovascular diseases that have been detected in genome-wide association studies (including our own work), and using next-generation sequencing approaches to further define the genetic architecture of congenital heart disease.

Paolo Manunta is Director of the Genetics of Kidney Diseases and Hypertension Unit, in the Division of Genetic and cellular Biology in San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy and he is also the Director of the Research Programs of the Nephrology and Dialysis Unit in San Raffaele Milan, Italy. He is the Co-chief of the Division of Nephrology and Dialysis of San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan. Paolo Manunta is Director for School of Nephrology, in the Università Vita Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy and Director, Associate Professor, Chair of Nephrology, Università Vita Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy. He is the Editorial Board Member of Journal of Hypertension World and etc., and serves as a member of various associations European Hypertension Society. His research interest includes Nephro-vascular hypertension, Physiology and pharmacology of cardiovascular and renal system with particular reference to hypertension disease, Cellular physiology, membrane ion transports, cellular volume regulation, and cellular membrane biochemistry in essential and genetic hypertension etc.

Nephro-vascular hypertension, Cellular physiology, Cardiovascular complication of renal failure

Frank J. Veith, Professor of Surgery, NYU and the Cleveland Clinic and Liebig Chair in Vascular Surgery. Dr. Veith graduated from Cornell University Medical College with Honors before completing his surgical residency training at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Thereafter, he achieved success with his pioneering work in experimental and clinical lung transplantation. In the 70s and 80s, his attention turned toward Vascular Surgery with an emphasis on lower extremity revascularization procedures, many of which he innovated. He was the first to advocate an aggressive approach to saving limbs threatened by arteriosclerosis and gangrene when most patients with this problem were being treated by a major amputation. He and his group were recognized as world leaders in this field and had more than 300 published articles related to it. In the early 1990s, Dr. Veith, long an advocate of endovascular treatments, became involved with endovascular grafts, using them for a variety of vascular lesions. Many of these procedures he and his associates performed were “firsts”. His group was the first to perform an endovascular graft repair of an AAA or EVAR in the US. They also performed the first EVAR for a ruptured AAA. In 1995 he was elected President of the Society for Vascular Surgery and was a major force promoting the endovascular treatment of many vascular diseases. Dr. Veith held positions as Chief of Vascular Surgery and Chairman of Surgery at Montefiore Hospital - Albert Einstein College of Medicine for many years. He was also The William J. von Liebig Chair in Vascular Surgery. In 2006, Dr. Veith was appointed to his present positions at New York University and the Cleveland Clinic. He has received numerous awards and honors as a leader, outstanding teacher and innovator in Vascular Surgery. He chairs the largest Vascular meeting, the VEITH symposium, held annually in New York City and now in its 43rd year. In 2010, Dr. Veith received the SVS Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013 an endowed chair, the Frank J. Veith Chair in Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, was established at Langone New York University Medical Center. In 2016 Dr. Veith will be honored to receive the ISET Lifetime Achievement Award.

vascular surgery General vascular surgery

Giuseppe Biondi Zoccai was born in San Remo, Italy, on 25 July 1974. He obtained his MD diploma magna cum laude at the University of Milan, Italy, in 1999 with a thesis on the comparison of diagnostic accuracy of different imaging tests for Takayasu arteritis. He completed compulsory military service in 2000 as Medical Officer in the 183rd Parachute Regiment of the Italian Army in Pistoia, Italy, as well as serving as Chief Medical Officer in the Task Force Falco of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in Dakovica, Kosovo. He then pursued specialist training in cardiovascular medicine, obtaining his Cardiologist diploma magna cum laude at the Catholic University, Rome, Italy, in 2004 with a thesis on a systematic review and meta-regression focusing on the early invasive management of acute coronary syndromes. In 2004-2005 he completed a fellowship in interventional cardiology at the Invasive Cardiology Unit of St. Raffaele University Hospital, Milan, Italy. He later worked as consultant cardiologist in the Cardiovascular Interventions Service of St. Donato Hospital, St. Donato, and of Abano Terme Hospital, Abano Terme, both in Italy. Since 2006 he has served as Assistant Professor, until 2010 in the Division of Cardiology of the University of Turin, Turin, Italy, during 2011 in the Division of Cardiology of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy, and since late 2011 in the Department of Medico-Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies of the Sapienza University of Rome, Latina, Italy, where he is currently involved in both noninvasive and invasive cardiology, as well as clinical research. During his early years, he pursued further training as visiting researcher/physician at: Hopital Hautepierre, Strasbourg, France; Aintree Hospital, Liverpool; UK, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA; and Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, USA. Among Dr. Biondi Zoccai's research interests are advanced biostatistical methods and evidence based medicine in cardiology, intracoronary stents, and the impact of inflammation in heart disease. In 2003 he founded an international collaboration dedicated to meta-analysis and evidence-based cardiology training (METCARDIO). He has been involved, as first author or coauthor, in more than 160 systematic reviews and meta-analyses. As a whole, he has coauthored more than 570 articles indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed, as well as several book chapters. He has a h index of 69 in Google Scholar, for a total of more than 17,000 citations, qualifying him to the 72 place in the list of Top Italian Scientists. He is Editor-in-Chief of three international biomedical journals (Edorium Journal of Cardiology, International Journal of Statistics in Medical Research, e World Journal of Meta-Analysis), and he has edited the first books ever devoted to network meta-analysis and umbrella reviews, respectively published by Nova Science Publishers and Springer.

Cardiovascular medicine, Cardiology, intracoronary stent,Heart diseases.