Chairs
Professor Stephanie Baldeweg
Professor Stephanie Baldeweg is a Consultant Physician in Diabetes and Endocrinology at University College London Hospital and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medicine at UCL. She graduated from Humboldt University, Berlin in 1990 and undertook her Specialist Training in London. She was awarded the MD for the thesis on “Insulin resistance and endothelial function in health and type 2 diabetes”. Professor Baldeweg is the Training Program Director for the North Thames Rotation in Diabetes and Endocrinology. She regularly lectures at national and international meetings as well as Patient days for Support groups such as Diabetes UK and the Pituitary Foundation. She was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in March 2009 (FRCPI) and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London) in June 2009 (FRCP).
Professor Baldeweg is interested in all aspects of diabetes and endocrinology. She has a special clinical and research interest in pituitary disease. Her other interests include diabetes, thyroid and reproductive as well as osteoporosis, weight management and cardiovascular risk reduction. She also has an interest in pregnancy preparation for women with diabetes and endocrine disease.
Professora Andrea Brandão
Andréa Brandão, MD, PhD, FESC, FACC is a Full Professor of Cardiology at the State University of Rio de Janeiro – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She graduated in Medicine in 1987 and concluded her residence in Cardiology in 1991 at the same University. She finished her doctorate in 2001 at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and her research was about cardiovascular risk factors in adolescents, especially hypertension. At School of Medical Sciences – State University of Rio de Janeiro, she was the post-graduation coordinator from 2016 to 2020 and has been the head of Hypertension Section of Cardiology Discipline since 2007. Prof Andréa Brandão leads two research groups registered at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – Brazil.
She has been dedicated to hypertension area in research, education and assistance activities. She has 155 articles published in peer-reviewed journals and 57 book chapters. She has been one of the coordinators of the last four Brazilian Guidelines of Hypertension. She is an editor of the book intitled Hypertension, in its 3rd edition in Brazil.
She is member of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology (BSC), American College of Cardiology (ACC) and European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Currrently, she takes part of the Board of Directors of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology as the Director of Departments. She is affiliated to BSC Department of Hypertension and ESC Council of Hypertension. In 2006-2007 she was the president of BSC Department of Hypertension and in 2018-2019, the President of the Rio de Janeiro Society of Cardiology.
Professor Otávio Coelho
Otávio Rizzi Coelho completed his clinical residency at the State Public Servant Hospital Francisco Morato de Oliveira, specialising in Cardiology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo. He completed his PhD in the School of Medical Sciences at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and joined the UNICAMP Faculty of Medical Sciences in 1972 where he was appointed as Professor in the Cardiology service in 1980 and is currently Professor of Cardiology, Professor of the Master’s degree (PhD) in Internal Medicine and the current chief of the Coronary Care Unit of the Hospital das Clinicas from UNICAMP.
Professor Coelho also participates in the management of the UNICAMP Faculty of Medical Sciences, has twice acted as Coordinator of the Extension and Community Affairs Committee and was Clinical Director of the Department of Medical Support and Assistance.
Professor Coelho has authored/co-authored more than 100 articles in high impact international journals. He has also presented in several international events and edited one of the most important textbooks of cardiovascular disease written in Portuguese.
He has significant participation in Cardiology Societies, having been President of the São Paulo Society of Cardiology (SOCESP) and the Department of Cardiology Clinic of the Brazilian Cardiology Society. Professor Coelho is a member of the editorial board of the Brazilian Archives of Cardiology, the Journal of the São Paulo Society of Cardiology (SOCESP), and is a Fellow of the European Society.
Professor John Cunningham
John Cunningham is a clinician-scientist holding positions as Professor of Nephrology at University College London Medical School and The Royal Free Hospital and an Honorary Fellowship at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, both in the UK. His early training was in Cambridge (pre-clinical) and Oxford, UK (clinical), with postgraduate training at The University of London and Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, USA under Drs Louis V Avioli and Eduardo Slatopolsky. He has remained an active frontline clinician in both nephrology and internal medicine. John Cunningham was Physician to HM The Queen and was knighted for services to The Royal Family in June 2014.
Academically Professor Cunningham has contributed to the understanding of the effect of acidosis on the bioactivation of vitamin D and described and characterised hysteresis in the parathyroid response to calcium, indicating that parathyroid cells can sense both the direction of change and the absolute concentration of ECF calcium. He subsequently ran research programmes examining the following: control by structurally modified vitamin D metabolites at PTH synthesis and release; the synthesis and release of bone cytokines by osteoblast like cells and the regulation of these by vitamin D metabolites; the location and relevance of the calcium sensing receptor in bone cells; the influence of simulated uraemia on the release of cytokines by bone cells; the factors mediating bone loss following renal transplantation and preventative strategies; the factors that control parathyroid function in vivo, including new vitamin D metabolites and calcimimetic agents. Professor Cunningham’s group has found that new structurally modified metabolites of vitamin D differ markedly in the way they influence the behaviour of both parathyroid cells and bone cells. His group also devised, conducted and published studies of the first effective prophylaxis against bone loss in the post-transplant setting. On these and other subjects, Professor Cunningham frequently lectures nationally and internationally, as well as serving on numerous international expert panels and working groups. He is a founding Co-chairman of the Nephrology at the Limits series held under the auspices of University College London, The University of Cape Town, and The Lancet.
Dr Richard Horton
Richard Horton is Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet. He was born in London and is half Norwegian. He qualified in physiology and medicine with honours from the University of Birmingham in 1986. He joined The Lancet in 1990, moving to New York as North American Editor in 1993. Richard was the first President of the World Association of Medical Editors and he is a Past-President of the US Council of Science Editors. He is an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University College London, and the University of Oslo. He has received honorary doctorates in medicine from the University of Birmingham, UK, the Universities of Gothenburg and Umea in Sweden, and the University of Tromso, Norway.
In 2016, he chaired the Expert Group for the High Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, convened by Presidents Hollande of France and Zuma of South Africa. From 2011 to 2015, he was co-chair of the UN's independent Expert Review Group on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health. Richard has received the Edinburgh Medal (2007) and the Dean’s Medal from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (2009). In 2011, he was elected a Foreign Associate of the US Institute of Medicine and, in 2015, he received the Friendship Award from the Government of China. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the British Pharmacological Society (2016), the Andrija Stamper medal from the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European region (2017), the Edwin Chadwick Medal for outstanding contributions to the advancement of public health (2017), the WHO Director-General’s Health Leaders Award for outstanding leadership in global health (2019), and the Roux Prize in recognition of innovation in the application of global health evidence (2019).
He has written two reports for the Royal College of Physicians of London: Doctors in Society (2005) and Innovating for Health (2009). He wrote Health Wars (2003) about contemporary issues in medicine and health, and he has written for The New York Review of Books and the TLS. He has a strong interest in global health and medicine’s contribution to our wider culture. He now works to develop the idea of planetary health – the health of human civilizations and the ecosystems on which they depend.
Dr Peter Libby
Peter Libby, MD, is a cardiovascular specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and holds the Mallinckrodt Professorship of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He served as Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at BWH from 1998 - 2014. His areas of clinical expertise include general and preventive cardiology. His current major research focus is the role of inflammation in vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. Dr Libby has a particular devotion to translate laboratory studies to pilot and then large-scale clinical cardiovascular outcome trials.
Dr Libby has received numerous awards and recognitions for his research accomplishments, including most recently the Gold Medal of the European Society of Cardiology (2011), the Basic Research Prize of the American Heart Association (2011), the Anitschkow Prize in Atherosclerosis Research of the European Atherosclerosis Society (2013), and the Special Award of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology (2014). He has received a number of lifetime achievement awards various organizations. Dr Libby was selected as Consulting Editor of the year by Circulation Research in 2015 and received a 2015 High Citation Award as an editorial board member of Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. He was awarded the Ernst Jung Gold Medal for Medicine for 2016.
Dr Libby’s elected professional memberships include the Association of American Physicians, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and honorary memberships in the British Atherosclerosis Society, the Japan Circulation Society, and the Japanese College of Cardiology. He has served as the President of the Association of University Cardiologists. He also has served in many roles as a volunteer for the American Heart Association, including chairman of several research committees and member of the executive committees of the Councils on Arteriosclerosis, Circulation, and Basic Science. He presided the American College of Cardiology’s Research Allocations Peer Review Committee for two terms. He has frequently consulted for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, including a 5-year term on the Board of Scientific Councilors. He directed the DW Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center and two cycles of Leducq Foundation Awards and has received continuous funding from the US National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for several decades.
An author and lecturer on cardiovascular medicine and atherosclerosis, Dr. Libby has published extensively in medical journals including Circulation, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature. He is an Editor of Braunwald’s Heart Disease, having served as the Editor-in Chief of the 8th Edition. Dr. Libby has also contributed chapters on the pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention of atherosclerosis to many editions of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. He has held numerous visiting professorships and delivered more than 80 major named or keynote lectures throughout the world.
Dr Libby earned his medical degree at the University of California, San Diego, and completed his training in internal medicine and cardiology at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s Hospital). He also holds an honorary MA degree from Harvard University, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Lille, France.
Professor Mpiko Ntsekhe
Mpiko Ntsekhe MD PhD F.A.C.C currently serves as the Hellen and Morris Mauerberger Professor and Chair of Cardiology, at the University of Cape Town and Head of the Division of Cardiology at Groote Schuur Hospital. His interests include studying the interface between infectious diseases and the cardiovascular system with a focus on HIV and tuberculosis, and interventions to improve the cardiovascular health of the poor and marginalized across the globe.
Ntsekhe runs a large public hospital cardiology clinical service, overseas a post graduate clinical and research training program and heads program in clinical research. He has a well-established publication track record including several book chapters, numerous peer reviewed articles t journals such as the NEJM, Circulation, Nature Reviews Cardiology and the European Heart Journal. His ambition in life is to contribute to improving society through scholarship, teaching and service.
Professor Marc Pfeffer
Dr Pfeffer is currently the Dzau Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Senior Physician in the Cardiovascular Division at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA USA.
A noted researcher, Dr Pfeffer is credited with introducing the concept that angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors could attenuate adverse ventricular remodelling following myocardial infarction and that this use would result in a prolongation of survival and other clinical benefits. Since this initial discovery, he has had a principal role in several practice-changing clinical trials.
In addition to his role as researcher in the field of cardiovascular disease, coronary artery disease, heart failure, diabetes and chronic kidney disease, Marc Pfeffer plays an active role in the academic development of trainees and junior faculty collaborating in trials. Dr Pfeffer is Senior Associate Editor of Circulation and is a member of the Editorial Board of several other prominent journals.
As an internationally recognized expert in the field of cardiology, in 2006 he was recognized by Science Watch as having the most “Hot Papers” (i.e., highly cited) in all of clinical medicine.
He is the recipient of the William Harvey Award of the American Society of Hypertension, the Okamoto Award from Japan’s Vascular Disease Research Foundation, the Clinical Research Prize, the James B. Herrick Award as well as the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Heart Association. Dr Pfeffer is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and is the recipient of an Honorary Doctoral Degree from Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Professor Brian Rayner
Brian Rayner is Head of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the Groote Schuur Hospital and University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, and established the Kidney and Hypertension Research Unit in 2016. He is a past President of the Southern African Hypertension Society and is an executive member of the African Regional Advisory Group of the International Society of Hypertension. He graduated in M.B.Ch.B. from University of Cape Town in 1978, obtained Fellowship of the College of Medicine (SA) in 1986, and has a Master of Medicine and PhD from the University of Cape Town. His doctoral thesis studied salt sensitivity and salt sensitive hypertension in indigenous South African people. He received the World Hypertension League Award for Notable Achievement in Hypertension in 2014 in his work related to his doctorate.
The Division of Nephrology and Hypertension and the Kidney and Hypertension Research Unit is an active training and research centre training Nephrologists from Sub-Saharan Africa, and has active Masters and Doctoral programmes. In 2016 the International Society of Nephrology endorsed the Division as a Regional Training Centre of excellence.
Brian Rayner's active research interests are therapy of hypertension, mutations in the ENaC, genetic determinants of salt sensitivity, HIVAN, vascular calcification and chronic kidney disease, primary aldosteronism, assessing adherence in hypertensive patients, ethics of rationing dialysis therapy, AKI and genetics of severe hypertension in blacks. He has a major interest in hypertension guidelines, and together with Profs Seedat and Veriava wrote the 2014 South African Hypertension Practice Guideline. He has 109 publications in peer reviewed journals, is on the editorial board of the CVS Journal of Africa, Austen Hypertension and Nephron Clinical Practice, and acts as a reviewer for many peer reviewed international journals, has made over 100 presentations at local and international congresses (many of which were invited plenary sessions) and has written 6 chapters in books.
Professor Andrei Sposito
Andrei Sposito is Full Professor of the Department of Cardiology at UNICAMP. He received his MD from the University of Bahia, Brazil, in 1992 and was trained in internal medicine and cardiology at the University of São Paulo (USP). He was awarded his PhD for his work on lipid metabolism and atherogenesis while at the USP, and completed his postdoctorate in this same field at the University of Paris VI, France. He served as Chairman of the Department of Atherosclerosis of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology from 2008 to 2010.
Prof Sposito has been awarded for research productivity by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development in the last 15 years. Currently he is Senior Associated Investigator of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, USA, and a Scientific Consultant at Rush University, Chicago, IL, USA. He is also Member of the Regional Executive Committee for the Americas of the International Atherosclerosis Society and Visiting Professor at the University of Parma, Italy.
Professor Sposito was the chief editor of the IV Brazilian Guidelines for the Prevention of Atherosclerosis, Associate Editor of Atherosclerosis and the Journal of Geriatric Cardiology, and Section Editor of BBA Clinical and presently he is member of the EBioMedicine Editorial Board in the Cardiovascular Research/Cardiology section. He has been author in several prestigious journals and his publications include chapters in Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine and Braunwald's Heart Disease.
Professor Derek Yellon
Derek M Yellon PhD, DSc (UK), DSc (SA), FRCP, FACC, FESC, FAHA, is Professor of Molecular & Cellular Cardiology at University College London (UCL) and Director of the Hatter Cardiovascular Institute at UCL & UCLH.
He is past Programme Director (Cardiology & Diabetes) for the National Institute for Health Research-UCLH-Biomedical Research Centre and past Vice President of the British Cardiovascular Society. In 1994 he was awarded a DSc from the University of Bath for his “substantial contribution to the knowledge of cardiovascular disease and treatment”. In 2013 he was awarded a second Doctor of Science (honorius causa) degree from the University of Cape Town in recognition of his distinguished basic and clinical research in the mechanisms underlying the phenomena of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury and cardioprotection.
He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; the American College of Cardiology; the European Society of Cardiology; the International Society for Heart Research and the American Heart Association.
Professor Yellon was instrumental in establishing a second Hatter Cardiovascular Institute at the Medical School of the University of Cape Town. In recognition of these achievements he was, in 1997, made an Hon Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town. He also holds Honorary Chairs at the University of South Alabama in the USA, and the North China Coal Medical University in China.
He is on the editorial board of a number of major Cardiovascular Journals and has published in excess of 550 full papers and edited 23 books. He runs a translational research Institute with his main area of interest being the pathophysiology of acute myocardial infarction. This relates specifically cardioprotection in the setting of diabetes, ischaemia/reperfusion injury, molecular aspects of adaptation to ischaemic injury and myocardial pre and postconditioning in both the basic and clinical arena.