Dear Members,
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting us heavily and the ESC has turned every activity until the ESC Congress 2021 (included) into a Digital Experience. Hence a few days ago the highly successful HFA Winter Meeting on Translational Heart Failure Research, that our WG proudly co-organises, also had an online only format.
We really missed the face-to-face, relaxed and informal environment of our traditional Winter Meetings, but we were able to have two scientifically- vibrant afternoons. Introduced by Andrew Coats and Thomas Thum, the two-day online meeting (20 and 21 January) focused on reverse remodelling, heterogeneity of cardiac immune system, impact of Sars-Cov-2 on the cardiovascular system, gene editing, reproducibility & efficacy of animal and animal-free models in cardiovascular research, contribution of non-cardiomyocytes to heart failure progression and therapy, metabolic flexibility of the heart.
Importantly the final session of thef irst afternoon was dedicated to the abstracts (no wine and cheese, this time!) and to the Young Investigator Award. The winner and the runner-ups were announced by Rudolf De Boer and really deserve to be congratulated: 1 Ruping Chen, Wurzburg, Germany; 2 Tea Kocijan, Trieste, Italy; 3 Mahmoud Abdellatif, Graz, Austria.
We really hope to meet you in person for the Winter Meeting 2022!
Stay safe!
On behalf of the Working Group nucleus,
Carlo Gabriele Tocchetti, Chairperson 2020-2022
Our mission: To reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease.