Editorial introductions

Abstract

Current Opinion in Cardiology was launched in 1985. It is part of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of cardiology is divided into 14 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Neal S. KleimanNeal S. KleimanDr Neal S. Kleiman is the Medical Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center at The Methodist Hospital, USA, and a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, USA. He has special interests in structural heart disease and coronary artery intervention. He received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Princeton University, USA. He completed medical school from Columbia Univesity, USA, trained in internal medicine and cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine, USA, and joined the faculty in 1987. During his tenure at Baylor, he was promoted to full Professor of Medicine and served as director of Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program. In 2002, Dr Kleiman was appointed to Assistant Director Cardiac Cath Labs, Methodist DeBakey Heart Center, which is affiliated with Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr Kleiman’ s research lies in the relationship between stenting, clotting and in recent years has expanded to include structural heart disease. His laboratory is recognized nationally as a select site for platelet research, examines the effects of antiplatelet therapy, the use of medications to prevent platelets from clumping and blood from clotting in patients with coronary artery disease who undergo angioplasty procedures. Kleiman has been the principal investigator and/or collaborating investigator in more than 100 studies and multi-center trials related to arterial thrombosis, the formation of blood clots in the arteries, clotting and angioplasty. His investigations have altered the management of patients undergoing coronary stenting and those receiving aortic valve replacements. Kleiman has published more than 350 manuscripts, book chapters and abstracts. His work has appeared in such publications as the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology, Circulation, The American College of Cardiology and The European Heart Journal. He is on the editorial board of The Journal of Interventional Cardiology, Circulation, The American Heart Journal and The Journal of Thrombosis and Thrombolysis. Hector O. VenturaHector O. VenturaHector O. Ventura, MD, is the Section Head of the Cardiomyopathy and Heart Transplant Center at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He is also a Professor of Cardiology at The University of Queensland School of Medicine, Ochsner Clinical School, Brisbane, Australia, as well as a Professor of Medicine at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. After graduating from the National University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine in Argentina, Dr Ventura completed research fellowships in arterial hypertension and cardiovascular diseases, an internship and an internal medicine residency at the Ochsner Medical Institutions and a fellowship in heart failure/heart transplantation at the Loyola University School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Dr Ventura has co-authored more than 550 articles, abstracts, and book chapters and is on the editorial board several cardiology journals. He is also the associate editor of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology Heart Failure. Carl (Chip) Lavie, Jr.Carl (Chip) Lavie, Jr.Dr Lavie graduated from Louisiana State University Medical School in 1983 and completed internal medicine residency at Ochsner and fellowship in cardiovascular diseases at Mayo, where he joined the faculty in 1989. Dr Lavie is Professor of Medicine and Medical Director, Cardiac Rehabilitation and Preventive Cardiology; Director, Exercise Testing Laboratory; and Staff Cardiologist, Echocardiographic Laboratory at the John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute in New Orleans, Ochsner Clinical School-The University of Queensland School of Medicine and he previously served for 10 years as Associate Director of the Internal Medicine Training program. He served as a Consultant in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana from January 2012-October 2014. Dr Lavie's research interests include cardiac rehabilitation and prevention, lipids, hypertension, obesity, and exercise, as well as noninvasive testing, encompassing echocardiography, exercise testing, and nuclear cardiology. He is the author of nearly 1000 medical publications including two cardiology textbooks, and over 50 book chapters. Dr Lavie serves as a frequent lecturer, reviewer for several medical journals, and is Associate Editor and Cardiovascular Section Editor of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings and is Editor in Chief of Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases and serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, American Journal of Cardiology, Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Prevention, and over 20 other Journals. For 2011 till now, he has served as Chairman of the Document Oversights Committee for AACVPR. For the years 2003 and 2004 he served as Chairman of Vascular, Hypertension and Prevention for the American College of Cardiology and he has been an elite reviewer for JACC for 7 of the last 8 years, also receiving the Simon Dack Award as a life-time, hall of fame, reviewer. In 2013, he gave Key-Note lectures for both the American College of Sports Medicine and the Cardiac Rehabilitation one for the AACVPR, where he received the 2013 Research Award. From a personal stand-point, he is an avid sports fan and competitive runner, with personal records in the 5K, 10K, Half-Marathon and Marathon of 18:30,38:30,1:24:30, and 3:10, respectively. He is the author of “The Obesity Paradox”, released April, 2014. Dimitri P. MikhailidisDimitri P. MikhailidisDimitri P. Mikhailidis is Academic Head and Reader and Honorary Consultant in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at the Royal Free Hospital campus, University College London Medical School, University College London (UCL), UK. His clinical interest is vascular disease prevention, and his research interests are dyslipidaemias and thrombosis. He is a former Wellcome Trust fellow. Dr Mikhailidis has over 21,100 citations listed in the ISI Core index. He is Editor in Chief of several journals including Current Medical Research and Opinion, Current Vascular Pharmacology and Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy. He has participated in guideline committees. He is a former member of the nucleus group for peripheral arterial disease of the European Society of Cardiology. Anthony S. WierzbickiAnthony S. WierzbickiProfessor Anthony S. Wierzbicki is consultant in metabolic medicine and chemical pathology and director of the lipid unit at Guy's and St. Thomas’ Hospitals, UK. He is a consultant physician in the obesity clinic and currently clinical lead for the automation laboratory services of Viapath. His work on cardiometabolic risk factors has led to risk appointment as Honorary Professor of Cardiometabolic Disease at King's College London, UK, and award of the fellowships of the American Heart Association and National Academy of Biochemistry (USA). He has published 300 papers on atherosclerosis and the risk factors involved in its causation. He has sat on many UK government panels in cardiovascular medicine, including for the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence where he has been a member of Technology Appraisal (2009–13), Diagnostics (2014-) and Highly Specialised Therapies committees (2013) and the Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Guideline Development Group (CG71; 2008–9). He chaired the Lipid and Cardiovascular Risk Assessment Guideline (CG181; 2013–14) and now chairs the Chronic Cardiac Failure guideline group (2016-). He contributed to the International Guidelines on Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (2014) and the American Heart Association consensus statement about Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (2015).