CORE TOOLBOX OF PHYSIOLOGY AND IMAGING: IMPROVING YOUR SKILLSET

Prof Andrew Sharp qualified from Edinburgh Medical School in 1998 and is Professor of Cardiology at the University Hospital of Wales and Cardiff University in the U.K. He conducted his early training at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, before moving to London for his senior clinical training. He completed the prestigious Milan-Imperial Interventional Cardiology Fellowship programme, having spent a year in San Raffaele and Columbus Hospitals, Milan, Italy, under the tutelage of Professor Antonio Colombo. He also spent three years training in interventional cardiology at Imperial College Hospitals in London. Prof Sharp was awarded an MD postgraduate research degree from the University of Edinburgh for his work on the hypertensive heart and his research interests include intracoronary imaging and physiology. as well as the use of device-based treatments for hypertension and pulmonary embolism.

Carlo Di Mario is Professor of Cardiology at the University of Florence and Director of the Structural 
Interventional Cardiology Division of the University Hospital Careggi, Florence, Italy. Previous posts included 15 years as Professor of Clinical Cardiology at Imperial College of Sciences, Medicine & Technology, London and Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital. Despite his teaching, research and administrative commitments, he maintains an active clinical involvement performing more than 100 PCI per year with special interest in the treatment of calcified lesions, chronic total occlusions, bifurcations, and diffuse disease. He is a regular TAVI operator and certified implanter for the Medtronic Evolut R and Edwards Sapien 3 transcatheter aortic valves. He participated in more than 160 MitraClip implantations in London and Florence and has recently started direct annuloplasty with the CardioBand. Professor Di Mario pioneered the use of intracoronary Doppler, pressure measurement, intravascular ultrasound, optical coherence tomography, and near infrared spectroscopy. He was PI of the OPTICUS trial, failing to demonstrate superiority of IVUS guided stenting, and of the Lipid Rich Plaque study, due to report at TCT 2018. He was Principal Investigator of the DESTINI trial, using Doppler CRF to identify lesions in need of stenting, and of the CARESS in AMI trial, a large multicentre trial showing that patients who receive fibrinolytic therapy for ST-elevation myocardial infarction benefit from early angioplasty. This trial and a subsequent meta-analysis have led to a change in the European Society of Cardiology and AHA/ACC Guidelines for treatment of STEMI patients. He cooperated with Dr Davies to the validation of iFR to assess lesion severity and discriminate the contribution of individual lesions, and with Dr Lyon in the intracoronary delivery of SERCA-2 genes via adenoviral vectors in the CUPID2 trial.

Dr Carlos Collet completed his education as an interventional cardiologist at the prestigious Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology in Sao Paulo, Brazil 2011, with training in cardiac CT at the Holy Cross Hospital, Florida, USA. Dr. Collet Bortone continued his education with a doctorate in cardiovascular sciences at the University of Amsterdam, and his Ph.D. thesis focused on the expansion of the current indication of cardiac CT to patients with complex coronary artery disease. Dr. Collet Bortone has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, and his research focused on the integration of cardiac imaging and physiology. He is the co-director of the catheterisation laboratory at the OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium.

Dr Dejan Milasinovic is an interventional cardiologist at the Department of Cardiology, Clinical Center of Serbia. He is also an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade. His main research interests focus in the fields of the invasive treatment of acute coronary syndromes and complex coronary interventions, with an emphasis on bifurcation PCI and intracoronary guidance. In 2016, Dr Milasinovic received the EuroPCR 2016 Best Abstract award, for a work on the timing of invasive coronary intervention in patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction. He is a member of European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI) and has served as program committee member of the annual EuroPCR conference. Dr Milasinovic also serves on the editorial boards of EuroIntervention (editorial consultant) and PCRonline and is the Chair of the EAPCI Young committee.

Dr Enrico Cerrato is Consultant interventional Cardiologist at San Luigi Gonzaga University and Rivoli Infermi Hospital cath lab unit (Turin, Italy) the second larger cath lab in Italy for PCI (>1900 PCI/y) coordinated by Dr. Francesco Tomassini and Dr.Ferdinando Varbella. Following his training as cardiologist, he completed a formal fellowship and a PhD program at Hospital Clinico San Carlos, (Madrid -Universidad Complutense), under the supervision of Prof. Javier Escaned. Dr Cerrato is one of the founder of Cardiogroup.org, a research network that has generated multiple studies on coronary imaging and physiology techniques, particularly focusing on intravascular imaging and physiology, spontaneus coronary artery dissection and complication treatment and prevention in interventional cardiology. He recently joined the structural aortic percutaneous treatment program in co-operation with Mauriziano Hospital in Turin.

Prof Javier Escaned is Head of Section (Interventional Cardiology Section) at Hospital Clinico San Carlos / Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). He trained in the United Kingdom as Specialist in Cardiology and obtained his PhD in The Netherlands. Author of >700 indexed scientific articles on interventional cardiology, imaging and physiology (h-index 100) and over 30 years of experience as PCI operator, he regularly lectures and performs live cases at major scientific and educational meetings. He is a recipient of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Silver Medal and the Andreas Grüntzig Award for his contributions to the fiedl fo Interventional Cardiology. Main areas of expertise include complex PCI, intracoronary diagnostics and functional coronary angiography. His track record in coronary physiology comprises being investigator on pioneer FFR trials like DEFER (1998), collaborator with Justin Davies in the validation and clinical implementation of iFR, and developer of new tools for the assessment of coronary microcirculation. Editorial roles include Deputy Editor EHJ, Advisory Editor Eurointervention, editor of the textbooks “Coronary Stenosis: Imaging, Structure and Physiology” and “Physiological Assessment of Coronary Stenoses and the Microcirculation". Recent board positions include EAPCI board / Education Committee Chair, ESC WG Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation, EuroCTO Board. Recent trials as Principal Investigator include ADVISE II, DEFINE FLAIR, SYNTAX II, PIONEER IV, Cerebral-Coronary-Connection (C3), DCR4Contrast, INOCA LongCovid and AID ANGIO. Additional interests are philosophy and music.

Dr Justin Davies is a board member of Monaco Cardio at the Princess Grace Hospital, Monaco, and an interventional cardiologist with over 15 years of experience as a leading educator in the field. His clinical and academic career was established at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London, where he built an international reputation for innovation in cardiovascular medicine. Over the course of his career, he has successfully mentored 15 PhD students, published more than 500 peer-reviewed papers — including landmark studies in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet — and holds 20 patents in cardiovascular medicine and technology. He was the co-principal investigator of the DEFINE-FLAIR study, which helped establish iFR (Instantaneous Wave-Free Ratio), a diagnostic technique he invented, as a globally adopted standard in coronary physiology. His work reflects a unique blend of scientific innovation, academic leadership, and clinical excellence. In addition to his research and academic commitments, Justin is CEO of Cerebria AI, where he leads the development of next-generation AI-powered cardiovascular imaging and physiology tools. Under his leadership, Cerebria AI is advancing cutting-edge solutions that integrate artificial intelligence with frontline cardiology to enhance clinical decision-making and patient outcomes. Combining deep clinical expertise with entrepreneurial vision, he continues to guide international ventures through funding, regulatory pathways, and commercialization, while remaining committed to transforming cardiovascular care on a global scale.