Professional Horizons

Eligibilty criteria

Applications are done online and are free. Applicants can select the mentors they wish to meet in order of preference.
All applicants have to be 40 years of age or under, registered to ESC Congress 2017 and an ESC Professional Member.
Applicants will be selected based on their motivations and CV. Each applicant will be assigned for 2 interviews. To apply send your motivation letter and CV to escplaza@escardio.org

Saturday 26 August – 10:00-11:00

Associate Professor Johann Wojta (Vienna, Austria)

Professor Jeremy David Pearson, FESC (London, United Kingdom)

Emeritus Professor of Vascular Biology at King’s College London and Associate Medical Director (Research) of the British Heart Foundation, the largest funder of cardiovascular research in the UK.  Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences.  Chairperson of the ESC Council for Basic Cardiovascular Science.
Area of expertise: His research focused on the responses of vascular endothelial cells to vasoactive and inflammatory mediators and the interactions of endothelial cells with leukocytes and platelets.  He has published over 140 refereed papers and 75 review articles, with over 10,000 citations.  His h index is 55.

Professor Rudolf de Boer, FESC (Groningen, Netherlands)

Rudolf de Boer (1972, Gouda, the Netherlands) is a Clinical Cardiologist and a Full Professor of (Translational) Cardiology at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands. He studied medicine at the University of Groningen and, previous to his current appointment, completed a research fellowship at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA, a PhD program at the University of Groningen, and a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. His research group focuses on novel genes involved in cardiac remodeling, fibrosis, metabolic changes, and diabetes, always trying to connect clinical observations to preclinical and mechanistic studies. He was appointed a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in 2010, is the president of the Heart Failure Working Group of the Dutch Society of Cardiology, and since 2014 Board Member of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC, for which he since 2016 serves as a chair the basic section. He coordinates the HFA committee on Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF) and co-coordinates of the study group on Biomarkers.

Sunday 27 August – 10:00-11:00

Associate Professor Pascal Meier (Geneva, Switzerland)

Doctor Gabor Toth (Graz, Austria)

Doctor Fina Maure (Barcelona Spain)

Prof. Ana Abreu (Lisbon, PT)

Ana Abreu is Cardiologist Coordinator of the CR Program and of the Exercise Testing Laboratory of Cardiology Department, Hospital Santa Marta. Areas of main interest: Exercise in Heart failure and CRT, High intensity exercise training, Autonomic nervous system imaging and Left ventricular function. Other areas of interest are noninvasive Imaging in Cardiology, echocardiography in Hospital Santa Marta and nuclear cardiology in the Nuclear Medicine Department, NuclearMed, Hospital Particular de Almada. She is Chair-Elect-of the EACPR Cardiac Rehabilitation Section, Member of the EACPR Prevention Implementation Committee and Deputy Member of the European Cardiology Congress Programme Committee. She is the Coordinator of the WG of Exercise Physiopathology and Cardiac Rehabilitation of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology. She is also author and co-editor of the contents of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Manual of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology and of the joint Cardiac Rehabilitation book of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology and Brazilian Society of Cardiology. Her main research area is on cardiac rehabilitation, especially in heart failure and CRT patients. She published 58 articles in Pubmed. She is involved in the clinical trials EXTRA-HF survey and BETTER-HF (unpublished). She is also a member of the Steering Committee of Contract for Life and Euroaspire V.

Prof. Marco Guazzi, FESC (Milan, IT)

Marco Guazzi is a Professor of Cardiology at the University of Milano and Head of the University Department of Cardiology at IRCCS San Donato University Hospital, Milan. His research primarily focuses on the pathophysiological and prognostic insights of heart failure syndrome and Group 2 Pulmonary Hypertension. He has established several clinical research programmes involving HF functional evaluation, therapy and pulmonary vascular disease. Between 2005 and 2007 he served as Chair of the Exercise Physiology and Rehabilitation Working Group of the Italian Society of Cardiology. Currently, he is appointed to the Board of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology of the European Society of Cardiology. He is Chair of the 2016 released ESC/AHA Guidelines on Cardiopulmonary exercise Testing and reviewer of ESC Guidelines on Heart Failure 2016. Prof. Guazzi serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Cardiac Failure, and is Associate Editor of the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. He is the author or co-author of over 500 manuscripts.

Professor Rudolf de Boer, FESC (Groningen, Netherlands)

Rudolf de Boer (1972, Gouda, the Netherlands) is a Clinical Cardiologist and a Full Professor of (Translational) Cardiology at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands. He studied medicine at the University of Groningen and, previous to his current appointment, completed a research fellowship at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA, a PhD program at the University of Groningen, and a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. His research group focuses on novel genes involved in cardiac remodeling, fibrosis, metabolic changes, and diabetes, always trying to connect clinical observations to preclinical and mechanistic studies. He was appointed a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in 2010, is the president of the Heart Failure Working Group of the Dutch Society of Cardiology, and since 2014 Board Member of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC, for which he since 2016 serves as a chair the basic section. He coordinates the HFA committee on Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF) and co-coordinates of the study group on Biomarkers.

Monday 28 August – 10:00-11:00

Professor Eric Van Belle (Lille, France)

Professor Dariusz Dudek, FESC  (Krakow, Poland)

Monday 28 August – 15:30-16:30

Associate Professor Pascal Meier (Geneva, Switzerland)

Doctor Gabor Toth (Graz, Austria)

Doctor Fina Maure (Barcelona Spain)

Professor Emanuele Barabato, FESC (Aalst, Belgium)

Professor Michael Haude, FESC (Neuss, Germany)

Professor Antonio Pelliccia, FESC (Rome, IT)

Professor Jeremy David Pearson, FESC (London, United Kingdom)

Professor Dirk J Duncker, FESC (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

Associate Professor Imo Hoefer, FESC (Utrecht, Netherlands)

Associate Professor Uwe Nixdorff, FESC (Düsseldorf, DE)

Uwe Nixdorff is a Professor of Internal Medicine / Cardiology lecturing at Erlangen University Clinic, Germany. Actually, he is running a prevention center at Düsseldorf, Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg (European Prevention Center). Primarily, his interest and research activity focused on cardiovascular imaging / non-invasive cardiology, unless recently, when he transferred this interest into the scenery of preventive cardiology. He has worked out a kind of algorithm unifying cardiovascular risk stratification and detecting / measuring preclinical atherosclerosis. Thus, he has written the imaging chapter of the ESC Textbook of Preventive Cardiology. Since ½ year he has been voted into the Executive Board of the EAPC as Secretary.

Professor Johannes Waltenberger, FESC (Muenster, Germany)

Tuesday 29 August – 15:30-16:30

Professor Alexander Lyon (London, UK)

Area of expertise: Heart failure, Cardio-Oncology and Takotsubo syndrome
Alexander Lyon is a Senior Lecturer in Cardiology at Imperial College London and a Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital. Dr Lyon  is a current member of the HFA board and chair of the HFA Cardio-Oncology and Takotsubo Syndrome Study Groups. Dr Lyon  is president of the British Cardio-Oncology Society which is hosting the Global Cardio-Oncology Summit in London in September 2017. Dr Lyon studied Medicine at Oxford University and he completed his PhD in gene therapy for heart failure at Imperial College London.

Professor Hein Heidbuchel, FESC (Antwerp, Belgium)

Professor Hein Heidbuchel graduated as MD in 1986 and obtained a PhD in Physiology in 1992, both at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He worked as a Research Fellow of the NIH (Fogarty International Center) at the University of Oklahoma (1993–1994) and was Fundamental Clinical Investigator of the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders from 1996 till 2006. In 2005 he obtained a special accreditation in Hospital Administration and Management.
He was Professor of Cardiology – Arrhythmology at the University of Leuven between 1994 and 2014, where he was Director of Interventional EP. In 2014 he was appointed Professor & Director of Arrhythmia Research at Hasselt University and Heart Center, Belgium. Since October 2016, he is the Chair of Cardiology at Antwerp University. He has been Chair of the Section on Sports Cardiology of the ESC (2010–2012) and is President-Elect of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) for a 2018-2020 term.
Professor Heidbuchel has published over 220 papers in international peer-reviewed journals. He has been the European Coordinating Investigator of the International Registry of ICDs in Athletes. He was member of the 2010 and 2016 ESC guideline committees for the treatment of atrial fibrillation, and has been lead author of the ESC Recommendations on Sports Participation with Arrhythmias, EHRA Practical Guide on Radioprotection in Electrophysiology, and two iterations of the EHRA Practical Guide on the Use of NOACs in AF (2013 and 2015).

Associate Professor Imo Hoefer (Utrecht, Netherlands)

Associate Professor Johann Wojta (Vienna, Austria)

Professor Karin Sipido, FESC (Leuven, Belgium)

Professor Peter Ferdinandy, FESC (Budapest, Hungary)