Symposium Directors

George Matalanis - VIC

A/Prof George Matalanis is an experienced Melbourne based Cardiothoracic Surgeon who performs coronary artery bypass graft surgery, heart valve repairs and replacements, and other cardiac and thoracic surgical operations. A/Prof George Matalanis is renowned for his pioneering work in aortic arch surgery without circulatory arrest. He has been the Director of the Cardiac Surgery Unit at Austin Health which is one of Victoria's largest health care providers and he is internationally respected for this work. A/Prof Matalanis specialises in coronary bypass graft surgery, cardiac valve surgery, aortic surgery, advanced aortic and mitral valve repair, minimally invasive mitral valve, tricuspid valve and ASD surgery and all aspects of acute and chronic thoracic aortic disease including both open and stent graft repairs. A/Prof Matalanis developed a thoracic aortic stent grafting program, and was heavily involved in implementing a total arterial revascularisation program.

Tristan Yan - VIC

Professor Tristan Yan is the Head of Thoracic Surgery Department, at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse Cancer Centre; Head of Robotic and Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery Programs at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the Sydney Adventist Hospital; Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of Sydney; and Professor of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at the Macquarie University in Sydney Australia. He is a visiting Professor of Cardiac Surgery at St Bartolommeo’s Heart Centre, in London, United Kingdom. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Cardiothoracic Surgery. He graduated from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) with Bachelor of Science (Medicine), Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. He completed three postgraduate higher degrees, Master of Surgery (USyd), Doctor of Medicine (UNSW) and Doctor of Philosophy (UNSW). He was trained at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney and then obtained Cardiothoracic Surgery Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Following advanced fellowships in the United States, England, Scotland and Germany, he specialises in major aortic surgery, minimally invasive heart and lung surgery. He has authored or co-authored more than 300 articles and textbook chapters, with an h-index of 49 and approximately 8400 citations. His Collaborative Research (CORE) Group is responsible for establishing and organising the world’s largest multi-institutional Aortic ARCH Registry, consisting of 14,000 patients and the multi-center Sutureless Aortic Valve Registry.

Sean Galvin - New Zealand

Sean is  consultant Cardiac and Thoracic  Surgeon working at Wakefield and Wellington Hospitals. After graduating from The University of Otago in 2002 he completed Cardiothoracic Surgical Training through the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Post-fellowship training   with George Matalanis and the team at the Austin Hospital  focused on surgery of the thoracic aorta, valve repair surgery, the use of arterial conduits in coronary surgery and general and minimally invasive thoracic surgical techniques.   He returned to Wellington in 2014 and is the current clinical leader of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Wellington Hospital and an Adjunct Professor at Victoria University Wellington. He is an active research member of a number of local and international trials. He is the New Zealand Cardiothoracic Representative on the Aotearoa  New Zealand RACS Committee, the Chair of Cardiothoracic Speciality Specific Exam Committee and a Member of the Cardiothoracic Surgical Training Committee of RACS. His current clinical practice has a focus  on aortic root surgery, valve preserving root surgery,  arch surgery and redo aortic surgery.  He has been instrumental in the growth of a diverse aortic programme in Wellington including establishing a central regional aortic MDM, introducing and expanding  technology such as the FET in New Zealand and development of an open thoracoabdominal programme with his vascular colleagues.

A/Prof Ruggero De Paulis - Italy

Ruggero De Paulis is Director of the Department of Cardiac Surgery at the European Hospital in Rome since 2006. He graduated at the University of L’Aquila and obtained the Medical specialization at the University of Turin; then he spent two years in the USA at the Artificial Heart Program at the University of Utah and two years as an attending surgeon at the VI and XII University of Paris. 

From 1991 he worked in Rome as a researcher at the University of Tor Vergata, where he was appointed Associate Professor in 2002. In 2006, he became Director of the Department of Cardiac Surgery at the European Hospital in Rome. 

In 2017 he was appointed Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine University in New York. Since 2020 he has directed the Chair of Cardiac Surgery at Unicamillus University in Rome. He was President of the Vascular Domain of the European Society of Cardiac Surgery (EACTS) from 2014 to 2017. He then served as President of the same European Society (EACTS) during 2018-2019. He is currently President of the Francis Fontan Fund at the European Society (EACTS), which awards international fellowships to young surgeons who excel in various aspects of cardiac and thoracic surgery.

His main interest is in aortic and mitral repair surgery and he is the inventor of the “Valsalva” aortic rosthesis, currently used worldwide for aortic root and ascending aorta surgeries.

He is the co-inventor of a new ring (Physioflex) for mitral valve repair. 

He is author of more than 250 scientific articles in international journals. He has an extensive practice in the treatment of aortic and mitral repair and aneurysmal diseases of the aorta and is an internationally renowned specialist in aortic valve preservation and repair.

Dr Ismail El-Hamamsy - United States

Ismail El-Hamamsy, MD, PhD, FRCSC, is Randall B. Griepp Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery and System Director of Aortic Surgery. His principal surgical focus is aortic root reconstructive surgery in young adults, including patients with heritable and connective tissue disorders.

Before joining Mount Sinai, Dr. El-Hamamsy directed the Montreal Heart Institute’s aortic surgery program, one of the busiest complex aortic surgery programs in North America, and was Associate Professor at the University of Montreal. He founded the Montreal Heart Institute’s Aortic and Connective Tissue Clinics, and helped establish several Ross programs across North America, Europe and Asia. Altogether, he has performed more than 700 Ross procedures and valve-sparing operations, which are among the world’s most complex and challenging aortic surgeries.

Dr. El-Hamamsy completed his medical education and cardiac surgery training at the University of Montreal, followed by a 4-year fellowship in London under the mentorship of Sir Magdi Yacoub. During this period, he completed a PhD entitled “The Living Aortic Valve” at Imperial College London. He currently leads a research team exploring the natural history of aortic disease, as well as innovative therapeutic approaches to diseases of the aorta and aortic valve.   

Dr. El-Hamamsy has published more than 150 scientific articles in The Lancet, Circulation, JACC and other leading peer-reviewed journals, authored or co-authored several book chapters, and delivered more than 100 invited lectures around the world. He serves on the Editorial Boards of The American Heart Journal, Journal of Heart Valve Disease, Structural Heart and the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, and is an elected member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.  He also serves on the Heart Valve Society’s Board of Directors, and – among other humanitarian projects – helped establish the Aswan Heart Center in Egypt.

Dr Shinichi Fukuhara - United States

Dr. Fukuhara earned his medical degree from Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan (2006), where he also received training in surgery (2009) and cardiovascular surgery (2010) with intense endovascular experience. After moving to the United States, he completed his general surgery residency at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, NY (2014), cardiothoracic surgery residency at Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY (2016), aortic surgery fellowship at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (2017), and aortic and endovascular fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH (2018). He is board certified by the American Board of Surgery, the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and the Japan Surgical Society. 

Dr Emmanuel Lansac - France

Emmanuel Lansac is a valve specialist in cardiac surgery, in the Department of Cardiac Pathology of the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, Paris. He did his surgical training in Paris Hospital and learned mitral valve repair with Professor A Carpentier and Professor C Acar. In 2000, he did his PhD in dynamic anatomy of the aortic valve complex with Professor Duran at The International Heart Institute of Montana Foundation, USA. Since then he developed a standardised and physiological approach to aortic valve repair for aortic root aneurysms and/or isolated aortic insufficiency, based on a new expansible aortic ring annuloplasty. Emmanuel is the main investigator of the prospective multicentric CAVIAAR trial (Conservative Aortic Valve surgery for aortic Insufficiency and Aneurysm of the Aortic Root) comparing this approach with the mechanical Bentall procedure. As chairman of the aortic valve repair group from the Heart Valve Society, he gathered a large international consortium of physicians and scientists involved in dystrophic aortic insufficiency and root aneurysm management who initiated the international AVIATOR registry. Their goal is to combine forces and share experience to address key epidemiological issues and raise better medical evidence for surgical indications as well as the place of repair versus replacement in aortic valve surgery.

Dr Jeffrey McNeil - USA

Prof Aung Oo - United Kingdom

Professor Aung Oo qualified in 1988, and has over 30 years of clinical experience. He has over 19 years of practice as a consultant cardiac surgeon. His area of practice includes the whole range of cardiac surgery including beating heart coronary artery bypass surgery, minimal access aortic valve replacement, mitral valve surgery and complex redo cardiac surgery. Professor Oo has subspecialised in complex aortic surgery performs all aortic surgery, from native valve sparing aortic root replacement, Bentall composite aortic root replacement, aortic arch surgery, descending and thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm repair for chronic aortic dissection and Marfan syndrome. He is an international expert in the field of complex aortic surgery, serves on the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgery (EACTS) Taskforce for Thoracic Aortic forum, Founder chair of United Kingdom Aortic Surgery (UKAS) and Director of Barts Aortovascular Symposium. He holds an honorary clinical professor affiliation with William Harvey Heart Research Institute of Queen Mary University of London and his research interest includes organ protection in complex aortic surgery, spinal cord protection and biomarkers in thoracic and thoracoabdominal aortic surgery.

Dr Randolph Hung-leung Wong - Hong Kong

Dr Randolph Hung-leung WONG received medical training from Medical School of The Chinese University of Hong Kong since 1995. He received Tang Siu Cho Memorial Prize in 1998 and obtained his MBChB (CUHK) in 2000. He undertook higher surgical training in cardiothoracic surgery in Prince of Wales Hospital, Grantham Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital and obtained FRCSEd (CTh) from The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2008. He further obtained Fellow of The College of Surgeons of Hong Kong and Fellow of Hong Kong Academy of Medicine in 2009.

Dr Wong's career interests include complex open aortic surgery including total arch replacement and frozen elephant trunk procedure and open thoracoabdominal aortic surgery, hybrid thoracic aortic intervention, hybrid and minimally invasive cardiovascular procedures. He is the convener of Hybrid Operating Theatre management committee of Prince of Wales Hospital and actively participates in the development of hybrid cardiovascular interventions.

Academically, Dr Wong's research interests are the techniques in improving outcomes of complex aortic procedures, screening for thoracic aortic aneurysm, genetic basis of aortic pathology as well as hybrid endovascular intervention for cardiovascular diseases. He contributed over 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals including Circulation, JACC, CHEST, Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 8 book chapters and more than 140 invited talks. He is now review editor of Frontier in Cardiovascular Medicine (IF 6.06). He has been regular reviewer of CHEST, HEART, Journal of Cardiac Surgery, Journal of Thoracic Disease, European Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery.

Currently, Dr Wong is the Professor and Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also the Cluster Service Team Head of the New Territories East Cluster and Ex-Chairman of the Specialty Group of Cardiothoracic Surgery of Hospital Authority. He is the Secretary of Cardiothoracic Surgery Board of Hong Kong, a Councillor of College of Surgeons of Hong Kong, and a Fellow of American College of Chest Physician, European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Society and member of American Heart Association, Society of Thoracic Surgeons, International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery and Asian Society for Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery.

Dr Bo Yang - USA