International Faculty
Ottavio Alfieri - Italy
Ottavio Alfieri MD is Professor of Cardiac Surgery at the S.Raffaele University Hospital in Milan, Italy.He is author or co-author of more than 600 peer-reviewed papers, related to many areas of cardiac surgery and cardiology. He is member of the editorial board of several scientific journals.His main interest is surgery for valvular heart diseases (particularly mitral valve repair). He develops several patents mainly related to treatment of heart valve disease. More than 20 years ago, he originally developed a method of mitral valve repair (the edge to edge technique) which is the basis of the currently most used type of percutaneous correction of mitral regurgitation.In 2011, he served as president of the European Association for Cardio-ThoracicSurgery (EACTS). In 2018 he received the gold medal from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).He is currently member of the STS, AATS, ESC, EACTS.
Gry Dahle - Norway
Consultant, Dept. of Cardiothoracic- and vascular Surgery, Rikshospitalet, Oslo University HospitalDr Dahle is a female cardiac surgeon with special interest in new Innovations, cardiac catheter treatment, heart failure and imaging. She is Europe Director in the board of ISMICS, in the task force for Catheter treatment in EACTS and just finished her duty in the Techno College task force also in EACTS. For several years she has been in the faculty of CSI meeting Frankfurt and also in the HF-CSI. This year she completed CAS leadership course in Zurich on mitral and tricuspid treatment. She is the PI of Tendyne study in Norway and also a proctor for Tendyne (Abbott). She is in the Board of Medical Societies in the Norwegian Medical Association and is the president of the Norwegian Association for Cardiothoracic surgery. At the end of this year she will defend her thesis on “Implementation of transcatheter aortic valve implantation: clinical, patient experience, economical and occupational hazard issues.In collaboration with Sopra Steria she has a project on HoloLens making an app for cardiac procedural planning.
Tirone David - Canada
Dr Tirone E. David is a Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto, an attending cardiac surgeon at Toronto General Hospital, and the holder of the Melanie Munk Chair of Cardiovascular Surgery. Dr David has published over 388 scientific papers, 51 chapters in medical textbooks as well as 5 surgical textbooks. He has developed numerous operative procedures to treat patients with heart valve disease, complications of myocardial infarction, and thoracic aneurysms. He has been a member of the editorial board of several medical journals. Dr David is a member of numerous surgical and medical societies and honorary member of the European Cardio-Thoracic Association, the Brazilian Cardiovascular Society, the Italian Society for Cardiac Surgery, the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association, the German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular, and the Society of Cardiac Surgeons. He was President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery in 2004-2005. He received the Order of Ontario in 1993 and the Order of Canada in 1996. He was elected University Professor in 2004, the highest honour the University of Toronto bestows to its professors.” Doctor David has received numerous other national and international awards related to his career as a cardiac surgeon.
Gebrine El Khoury - Belgium
Professor El Khoury is head of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at St-Luc Hospital with Membership to the Belgian, French and European Association for Cardiothoracic Surgery to name a few. He specialises in Adult Cardiac Surgery, General Thoracic Surgery and Peripheral Vascular Surgery. Dr El Khoury’s interests include valve reconstruction and repair, aortic root reconstruction (remodelling), ao.valve: ross; homograft; stentless, aortic dissection I (remodelling), mitral repair (carpentier technics, goretex neo chordaes), mitral homograft and arterial evascularisation (ITA,GEA,sequential).
David Taggart - UK
David Taggart is currently Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Oxford. He qualified from Glasgow University in 1981 and in 1989 was awarded an MD with Honours for studies on the effects of hypothermia on the metabolic response to cardiac surgery. David subsequently trained as the Senior Registrar at the Royal Brompton Hospital under Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub and Mr Lincoln. In 1995, he was appointed consultant cardiac surgeon at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where he obtained a PhD (from Strathclyde University, Glasgow) for studies of the inflammatory response during cardiac surgery. In 2004, he was appointed Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Oxford. His main interest is coronary revascularization including the evidence basis for percutaneous vs. surgical revascularization [coronary artery bypass graft (CABG)]. With respect to CABG, his surgical interests are in the use of multiple arterial grafts, off pump surgery, and quality assessment of grafts in the operating room. Over the last few years, he has been the lead surgical investigator for clinical trials assessing the potential efficacy of external stents for vein grafts to mitigate long-term failure.
Frank Van Praet - Belgium
Frank Van Praet graduated in 1987 from the school of Medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. After his training in General Surgery and certificate of proficiency in Cardiac Surgery, he followed a specialisation in the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (USA) and The Toronto Hospital (Canada). Today, he is one of the leading specialists in minimally invasive surgery. As head of the department Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery of the OLV Clinic in Aalst, he is striving to continuously improve the patients outcome.
Timo Weimar - Germany
Timo Weimar, MD, works as cardiac surgeon at Sana Cardiac Surgery Stuttgart in Germany. He is specialized in aortic surgery as well as the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. He was trained at Sana Stuttgart by Nicolas Doll, MD, and at Washington University St. Louis by Ralph J. Damiano, MD. Besides different types of concomitant ablation techniques he also performs stand-alone procedures, including minimally invasive Maze IV procedures, endoscopic left atrial ablation on the beating heart and endoscopic left atrial appendage management. He has trained surgeons in more then 50 centers worldwide in those techniques and published extensively in peer-reviewed journals on this topic.