Dr KRISTIN MOBERG AAKRE
M.D. Ph.D.
Professor, Consultant
University of Bergen / Haukeland University Hospital
Institute of Clinical Science / Department of Medical Biochemistry and Pharmacology Bergen, Norway
Dr. Kristin M Aakre is professor and medical doctor specialized in medical biochemistry. She was board certified in laboratory medicine in 2009 and completed her PhD in 2011 (University of Bergen).
She has published more than 85 articles in peer-reviewed international journals. Her main research interests are diagnostic and prognostic properties of cardiac biomarkers, with a particular focus on acute coronary syndrome. She has also published within biological variation and analytical quality specifications, mainly related to cardiac biomarkers. She is interested in guideline development, and has participated in several national and international working groups within laboratory medicine.
Prof FRED S. APPLE
PhD
Professor and Principal Investigator
Hennepin Healthcare/HCMC & University of Minnesota
Laboratory Medicine & Pathology
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Fred Apple PhD DABCC is on the Medical Staff, Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology, at Hennepin Healthcare/Hennepin County Medical Center, in Minneapolis, where he serves as Principal Investigator of the CLIA certified Cardiac Biomarkers Trials Laboratory at the Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute and Professor of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology at the University of Minnesota. Professor Apple’s applied research has focused in the area of cardiac biomarkers involving acute coronary syndrome, heart injury, and most recently COVID-19; serving as PI on five clinicaltrials.gov studies. He current serves as an Associate Editor of Clinical Chemistry, a member of the ‘Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction and Myocardial Injury’ Global Task Force, past chair and currently consultant to the IFCC Committee on Clinical Application of Cardiac Biomarkers.
Prof RICK BODY
MB ChB MRCSEd(A&E) FRCEM PhD
Professor of Emergency Medicine
The University of Manchester
Division of Cardiovascular Science
Manchester, UK
Rick Body is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Manchester, and an Honorary Consultant and Group Director for Research and Innovation at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. He pioneered several novel diagnostic strategies for acute coronary syndromes, including single sample rule-out with high-sensitivity troponin and the Troponin-only Manchester Acute Coronary Syndromes (T-MACS) decision aid. He has held positions with NICE, NHS England and the IFCC. Rick is Deputy Editor at the Emergency Medicine Journal.
Prof PAUL O. COLLINSON
FRCPath MD
Professor of Cardiovascular Biomarkers,
St George’s University of London,
London, UK
P. O Collinson MA MB BChir FRCPath MD FAACC FRCP FESC. Professor of Cardiovascular Biomarkers at St George’s University of London and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist studied at St Catharine’s College Cambridge (Medicine and Biochemistry) and subsequently at St Thomas Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital. He was won several prizes and awards for his work on Cardiovascular Biomarkers (ran the first RCT of cardiac diagnostics) including the Hytest Award (Now IFCC award) for lifetime achievement in cardiovascular biomarkers. Published over 300 papers and review articles. Likes SCUBA diving and photographing sharks. Especially the ones with big teeth.
Prof ELLIE DOW
BSC(Hons) LRCP MRCS PhD FRCPath
Consultant in Biochemical Medicine and Honorary Professor
NHS Tayside and University of Dundee, Blood Sciences, Dundee UK
Prof Dow has a longstanding interest in laboratory IT, the clinical laboratory user interface, and is co-inventor, with Prof John Dillon of the University of Dundee, of the multi-award winning Intelligent Liver Programme (iLFT), providing earlier diagnosis of liver disease. She has a long standing interest in cardiac markers and has been on the steering committee of the cardiac markers scheme for a number of years. Prof Dow has held a number of senior NHS roles in NHS Tayside and regionally in Scotland, and is currently leading the implementation of a new laboratory information management system for NHS Tayside, as well as the clinical laboratory implementation of the University of Dundee led and Scottish Government funded iDiabetes precision medicine programme.
Dr ALLAN STANLEY JAFFE
M.D.
Wayne and Kathryn Preisel Professor of Cardiovascular Disease Research
Mayo Clinic
Department of Cardiovascular Medicine Rochester, USA
Dr. Allan Jaffe is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He received his house staff and Cardiology training at Washington University and continued there for 24 years rising to the rank of Professor of Medicine and Director of the Coronary Care Unit. He then moved to the State University of New York where he was Chair of the Cardiovascular Division, Associate Chair of Medicine for Academic Affairs, and Professor of Medicine. After four years he moved to Mayo Clinic where he is presently Professor of Medicine in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine and Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, and the Wayne and Kathryn Preisel Professorship for Cardiovascular Disease Research. He is a noted authority on biomarkers of cardiac injury, inflammation, hemodynamic disturbance, and coagulation and particularly their clinical utility. He has published a large number of original manuscripts, book chapters, reviews, and sits on most of the prestigious editorial boards and guideline committees in the Cardiology and Clinical Chemistry communities. He has been a principal for the Universal Definition of MI group. He was recently award the 2024 IFCC award for contributions to cardiovascular diagnostics.
Dr KEN LEE
MBChB PhD
Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology
University of Edinburgh
Centre for Cardiovascular Science
Edinburgh, UK
Dr Lee is a Clinical Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and a Specialist Registrar in Cardiology at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. During his British Heart Foundation Clinical Research Fellowship, he developed expertise in data science, epidemiology and in developing large prospective patient cohorts using linked national and regional healthcare data. Recently, he developed the CoDE-HF and CoDE-ACS machine learning algorithms and is currently working to implement these novel decision support tools into clinical practice to improve the diagnosis of acute heart failure and myocardial infarction. He is also responsible for the supervision of clinical and data science PhD students.
Dr ZIWEN (CASS) LI
PhD, MScR, MM, BM
Research fellow
University of Edinburgh
Centre for Cardiovascular Science Edinburgh, UK
Dr. Ziwen (Cass) Li is a postdoctoral data scientist at the Centre for Cardiovascular Science, University of Edinburgh. She specializes in healthcare data analysis, proficient in R and Python, data wrangling, visualization, statistical modelling, machine learning, and developing Shiny applications. She is a certified Data Analyst with the Royal Statistical Society, and has recently been awarded the Advanced Data Science Professional Certificate. She completed her PhD in Developmental Neurobiology at the University of Edinburgh under Professor David Price. She then worked as the senior postdoc in Dr. Mairi Brittan’s group on cardiovascular regeneration and joined Professor Nick Mills’ group in 2023 as a data scientist, focusing on cardiac troponin in acute care. Despite her recent field transition, she has been involved in multiple projects and had a simultaneous publication in JACC of data presented at ACC.24 on sex-specific thresholds for ruling out myocardial infarction. Committed to undergraduate education, she teaches R programming and statistical modelling, and lectures on single-cell RNA sequencing in cardiovascular regeneration. She is eager to share her insights on risk stratification with high-sensitivity cardiac troponin in the Emergency Department and looks forward to engaging with fellow professionals.
Prof JOHN WILLIAM (BILL) MCEVOY
MB BCh BAO MHS PhD
Established Professor of Medicine and Cardiology
University of Galway
Department of Cardiology Galway, Ireland
Bill McEvoy, MB BCh MHS PhD, is an academic cardiologist interested in all aspects of preventive cardiology. After graduating from University College Cork School of Medicine in 2004, he spent 4 years training in Ireland, mostly in the Mater Hospital in Dublin. In 2008 he undertook further internal medicine training in the Osler residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He stayed at Johns Hopkins for cardiology fellowship and was subsequently on the Johns Hopkins faculty for 3 years. He was recruited back to Ireland in 2018 as Professor of Cardiology at the University of Galway. Since then, he has also served as the Medical and Research Director for the Irish National Institute for Prevention and Cardiovascular Health (www.nipc.ie). He has an active clinical practice that informs all aspects of his research. His interests include diastolic blood pressure, cardiovascular biomarkers, aspirin, subclinical atherosclerosis imaging, and implementation. With Liz Selvin and Rob Christenson, he took the lead on reference range papers stemming from the recently completed FNIH CV Biomarker Consortium study of the US nationally representative NHANES study. He is also co-PI for the ESC-EuroASPIRE-6 study and co-chair for the 2024 ESC guideline on arterial hypertension.
Prof NICHOLAS L. MILLS
BSc Hons MBChB PhD FRCP FESC FMedSci
British Heart Foundation Chair of Cardiology
Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics
BHF/University Centre for Cardiovascular Science, University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, UK
Professor Mills is the British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiology at the University of Edinburgh and a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. His research group uses linked healthcare data to develop new approaches to improve the diagnosis of patients with acute cardiac conditions, and to evaluate their impact in practice. He is the chief investigator of a series of randomised trials that have evaluated the implementation of cardiac biomarkers and decision support tools.
Professor Mills is also the Lead and Senior Responsible Officer for the Data Driven Innovation in Health and Social Care programme for the University of Edinburgh. He is an Associate Editor at Circulation and Chairs the European Society of Cardiology Working Group on Cardiac Biomarkers.
Mr ALAN REID
MSc.
Consultant (Advisor)
UK NEQAS Cardiac Markers
Glasgow, UK
Alan was Principal Clinical Scientist within the Biochemistry Department, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Scheme Organiser of UK NEQAS Cardiac Marker Service until retirement in 0ctober 2022. He remains an honorary consultant with UKNEQAS Cardiac Markers. He still maintains research interests in the use of cardiac biomarkers in acute coronary syndrome and heart failure. He was a former member of European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR) project: Providing the measurement infrastructure to allow quantitative diagnostic methods for biomarkers of coronary heart diseases. This EMPIR initiative was co-funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. This initial project has now been completed. A continuation of this project is currently being carried forward under the auspices of the IFCC.
Prof CATHERINE ROSS
Chief Scientific Officer for Scotland
Scottish Government
Edinburgh, UK
Catherine Ross is the Chief Scientific Officer for Scotland, Scottish Government’s most senior clinical advisor for Healthcare Science professional issues, and head of profession for the scientific workforce within the NHS in Scotland. She provides expert professional advice to Scottish Ministers and Policy Officials and leadership for all aspects of policy which impact on the scientific workforce including education, research and clinical practice.
Catherine is non-executive director of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Irelands largest health trust. Catherine is a Chartered Scientist and Chartered Biologist, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, the Academy of Healthcare Science, the National Institute of Prevention and Cardiovascular Health in Ireland and the European Society of Cardiology. She is a Visiting Professor at Edinburgh Napier University, Manchester Metropolitan University and Honorary Research Consultant in NHS Lothian. Catherine holds a number of senior leadership positions Nationally and Internationally and has served as the President of the Professional Body for Cardiac Scientists. She is the current Vice-Chair of the Science Council, the international awarding body of Chartership in Science, as well as a member of the Science Council Board of Trustees and Chair of the Policy Advisory Committee. She is currently an executive Board member of the Association of Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions within the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), and is the current Secretary/Treasurer of the Board and Member of the European Society of Cardiology Taskforce on Allied Professionals.
Prof MARTIN THAN
MBBS
Emergency Medicine Specialist and Director of Emergency Medicine Research
Christchurch Hospital
Emergency Department
Christchurch, New Zealand
Prof Martin Than is an Emergency Medicine Specialist and Director of Emergency Medicine Research at Christchurch Hospital, New Zealand. His profound interest in supporting and monitoring research that improves patient care safely and ethically drives him to participate in any forums with aligned aims. For the past 16 years his work on high-sensitivity cardiac troponin has led to the transformation of chest pain pathways throughout New Zealand. Professor Than has extensive international collaborative links and experience in undertaking and overseeing large research projects. He has published 193 papers and 3 book chapters to date.
Prof RAPHAEL TWERENBOLD
MD
Full-Professor in Clinical Cardiology, Consultant in interventional Cardiology
University Heart & Vascular Center Hamburg
Department of Cardiology
Hamburg, Germany
Raphael Twerenbold, MD, FESC, is a consultant in interventional cardiology and head of the chest pain unit at the University Heart & Vascular Center Hamburg, Germany, where he holds a full-professorship in clinical cardiology with a focus on cardiovascular biomarkers and genomics. Scientifically, he has been focusing on the optimal use of cardiovascular biomarkers for the early diagnosis and rule-out of acute myocardial infarction for nearly two decades. Doctor Twerenbold was substantially involved in the development of the ESC 0/1-hour algorithm using high-sensitivity cardiac troponin and is co-inventor of the ACS Pathfinder, which is an innovative machine-based model to precisely estimate the individual risk of myocardial infarction in patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome.
Assistant Prof SAARA WITTFOOTH
PhD
Assistant Professor of Biotechnology
University of Turku
Department of Life Technologies
Turku, Finland
Dr. Saara Wittfooth is Assistant Professor of Biotechnology at the Department of Life Technologies, the University of Turku, Finland. She is the leader of the cardiovascular disease diagnostics research of the Department. She received her PhD in molecular biotechnology and diagnostics in 2009. In 2017 she conducted research at Boston Children’s Hospital as a visiting Fulbright Senior Scholar and in the spring of 2024 at Swedish Collegium of Advanced Study / Uppsala University Biomedical Center as a as a Visiting Fellow. Her research activities have been related to the development of highly sensitive immunoassays for biomarkers of various diseases and nucleic acid tests for pathogen detection. In the focus of her research interests are novel cardiac biomarkers, such as long forms of cardiac troponin T, free PAPP-A and cardiac troponin autoantibodies / macrotroponin, and development of innovative highly sensitive immunoassays for the detection of these molecules. In 2019 she received the EFLM Cardiac Marker Award for remarkable scientific work in the field of cardiovascular diseases.