Ashraf Youssef

United States

Ashraf F. Youssef, MD, PhD, MBA, DABT (1995–2025), is a recognized expert in pharmaceutical safety with 30+ years of drug development experience, with a strong focus on cardiovascular safety. As a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology, he has evaluated and managed cardiovascular risk using multiple in vivo and in vitro nonclinical models, for instance, contributed to the development of a GLP standard in vitro assay (hERG channels essay), and oversaw numerous Thorough QT studies. He has published on nonclinical safety and pharmacovigilance and is a reviewer for multiple journals. Youssef oversaw numerous products in many therapeutic areas including Neurology, Oncology, Gastroenterology, Rare and Metabolic diseases in start-up through large pharmaceutical companies. He is leading efforts to detect and manage safety signals and respond to health authorities globally and he provides strategic and practical recommendations for benefit–risk assessment and the advancement of cardiovascular safety as a core priority in drug development. He also contributes to the field through active participation in scientific forums and international consortia and panels, sharing expertise in cardiovascular safety and pharmacovigilance.

Riccardo Fenici

Italy

Muhammad Anis Haider

United Kingdom

Amir Kazory

United States

Amir Kazory is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Nephrology, Hypertension, and Renal Transplantation at the University of Florida. His main academic interests are the nephrologic aspects of heart failure, contemporary and futuristic decongestive strategies, and cardiorenal syndrome. In addition to holding several editorial roles, Dr. Kazory has published extensively on topics mainly related to collaborative approaches in the field of cardiorenal medicine and is regularly invited to speak at national and international conferences around the world.

Ioana Dumitru

United States

Ioana Dumitru is a heart failure and transplant cardiologist, professor of medicine with University of South Florida and currently the Medical Director of MCS Program and Co-Director of Heart Failure Center of Excellence at Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Florida. She has founded and directed two prior successful heart failure, MCS and heart transplant programs in her career with University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha Nebraska as well as Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood Florida. She has been involved in national landmark trials and has had multiple presentations and publications in the field of heart failure, MCS and cardiac transplantation

Julia Gorelik

United Kingdom

Julia Gorelik is Professor of Cellular Biophysics, within the Cardiovascular Science Division at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. She is working in the interface between biophysics and cardiovascular research, developing a new high resolution microscopic technique that is suitable for studying living cells - Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy (SICM) for cardio biology. Professor Gorelik has a long-standing interest in the heart, which led her to develop the SICM to measure contraction, rhythm and calcium dynamics of cardiomyocytes simultaneously, allowing the study arrhythmias and heart failure conditions on cultured heart cells. She built a SICM microscope combined it with fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) technique for study spatial distribution of beta-adrenoreceptors on the surface of the cardiomyocytes. She is perfecting ion channel recordings from defined nanodomains on the surface of cardiomyocytes. She studies local translation of key proteins in cardiomyocytes. Another of her passions is mechanobiology, as SICM can measure mechanical parameters such as Young's modulus. Professor Gorelik is a scientist with an extensive network of collaborators. She has published more than 150 papers in high impact factors Journals including Science, Circulation, Circulation Research and others.

Randas JV Batista

Brazil

Randas José Vilela Batista is a Brazilian cardiac surgeon and medical researcher best known for developing the controversial but widely discussed “Batista procedure” (also called partial left ventriculectomy). He graduated in medicine from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) in 1972 and later completed medical training and residencies in several countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France. After returning to Brazil, he worked in cardiac surgery centers in Paraná, where he began developing innovative approaches to end-stage heart disease. Beyond his surgical innovations, he is also associated with the Vilela Batista Heart Foundation (Fundação Vilela Batista) in Brazil, an organization dedicated to advancing cardiac care, medical training, and hospital projects.