Professor Raal is currently Professor and Head of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, as well as Director of the Carbohydrate and Lipid Metabolism Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He has authored or co-authored over 300 original articles and book chapters and has reviewed for several international journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, Circulation, and Atherosclerosis. He is on the Editorial Board of Atherosclerosis and is a Board member of the International Atherosclerosis Society. Professor Raal is particularly interested in lipids and lipid disorders and has been integrally involved in the management of familial dyslipidaemia, particularly heterozygous and homozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH). The major focus of his research remains the clinical, biochemical, genetic and therapeutic management of this condition and he continues to conduct studies with novel therapies such as PCSK9-inhibitors and ANGPTL3-inhibitors in this patient group.

Paolo Raggi, MD, is a Professor of Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, AB, Canada. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Radiology as well as Professor of Population Health and Epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, USA. Dr. Raggi received his MD degree Summa Cum Laude from the University of Bologna, in Bologna, Italy. Dr. Raggi conducts research in imaging of atherosclerosis in cardio-metabolic disorders, chronic kidney disease, HIV, diabetes mellitus and others. He has contributed ~450 peer-reviewed publications in those fields.

Dr. Sanjay Rajagopalan is the Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine, University Hospitals Harrington Heart and Vascular Institute, Herman Hellerstein, MD Professor of Cardiovascular Research and Director of the Case Cardiovascular Research Institute at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH. Dr. Rajagopalan is among an elite group of physician scientists whose work has help transform global perceptions and understanding of the impact of environmental risk factors on cardiovascular disease. He has additionally made seminal contributions towards the development of next generation therapeutic modalities for cardiovascular disease and is a leading authority in advancing innovative approaches for the imaging of complex cardiovascular disorders. Dr. Rajagopalan’s laboratory has been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Rajagopalan is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), American Association of Physicians (AAP), Association of University Cardiologists (AUC), the Association of Professors of Cardiology (APC) and is the recipient of the American College of Cardiology’s Distinguished Scientist Award (Translational Domain). Dr. Rajagopalan has published over than 400 original peer reviewed research publications in journals such as JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, Circulation, Journal of Clinical Investigation and Circulation Research in addition to more than 300 invited editorials and reviews. He has served as an editor for at least two textbooks and several monographs on vascular disease and atherosclerosis.

Julia Ramírez is a María Zambrano Research Fellow at the University of Zaragoza, Spain and holds an honorary lectureship in Cardiovascular Data Science at Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom. Julia received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Zaragoza in 2017. The main objective of her PhD was to extract information from the electrocardiogram (ECG) to non-invasively quantify cardiovascular risk. She, then, moved to Queen Mary University of London to investigate the genetics of ECG markers and their role in assessing cardiovascular risk. In January 2022, she returned to the University of Zaragoza thanks to the María Zambrano Scheme for Attracting International Talent. Julia has 55 publications, and her research has been awarded with four postdoctoral fellowships (WHRI-ACADEMY COFUND International Fellowship, 2017, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, 2018, by the Marie Curie Actions, H2020, European Commission, "Atracción de Talento Investigador de la Comunidad de Madrid - Modalidad 2" and "Ayuda a la Recualificación Atracción de Talento Internacional María Zambrano"). Her research has been awarded with three Young Investigator Awards (2013, 2014 and 2016), two Clinical Needs Translational Awards (2018 and 2019) and three mobility grants (2012, 2015 and 2016).

Kausik Ray is currently President of the European Atherosclerosis Society. Professor of Public Health, Director of Imperial Clinical Trials Unit-Global within the School of Public Health, Imperial College London, Consultant Cardiologist and Chief Clinical Officer and Head of Trials –Discover Now as well as NIHR ARC National Lead of Cardiovascular Disease. Professor Ray received his medical education (MB ChB, 1991) at the University of Birmingham Medical School, his MD (2004) at the University of Sheffield, a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and finally an MPhil in epidemiology (2007) from the University of Cambridge. A Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the European Society of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the Royal College of Physicians, Prof Ray is also a member of the British Cardiovascular Society. He has served the EAS as a Consensus panel and EAS Executive Committee memeber. Professor Ray has either been the Principal Investigator and lead for several major medical trials, as well as international registries such as Da Vinci, Santorini, CLEAR Harmony, the ORION programme and BETONMACE as well as serving on the Executive Committee of many others. Professor Ray’s research interests have focused on the prevention of coronary disease with a focus on lipids, diabetes, biomarkers and risk prediction. He has an H index of 94, an i10 of 236 and over 106,000 citations for his work in journals such as New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, JAMA, EHJ, Circulation and JACC. He has also been included in the Clarivate Analytics’ list of the top 1% most cited authors in all of global medicine in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Key original contributions which have influenced European and American guidelines as well as FDA and EMEA. Professor Ray leads the EAS FH Studies collaboration which is the first global registry of FH which includes 67 countries and 66,000 cases, as well as being the Senior PI for the TOGETHER study looking at cardiometabolic risk in the vascular health checks in 250,000 people in London.

Katey Rayner is an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and the Assistant Dean of Research in the Faculty of Medicine in Ottawa, Canada. Dr. Rayner’s research program focuses how inflammation underlies common diseases like coronary artery disease, obesity and dementia. Her lab is trying to understand the molecular signals that cause inappropriate activation of the immune system and how we can use this understanding to either better diagnose/identify patients at risk of disease, or to better treat this excess inflammation directly to lower risk of disease. Dr. Rayner has been recognized with awards such as the Joseph A Vita Award (American Heart Association), Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences Young Investigator Award, and is a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada. Dr. Rayner’s research is currently funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the European Cardiovascular Research Network.

Julie Redfern is a Professor of Public Health and the Research Academic Director (Researcher Development Output and Impact) in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney; a practicing Physiotherapist; and Professorial Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health. She has been a Chief Investigator on research grants totalling $25M in the past 5 years and has published over 190 manuscripts and 4 book chapters. Professor Redfern has held continuous research fellowships from the National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia) and the National Heart Foundation of Australia. She has over15 years of experience developing, testing and implementing scalable strategies to close evidence-practice gaps and improve health outcomes for people with chronic disease. Professor Redfern also has expertise in multidisciplinary and translational research and is an advocate for effective secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Professor Redfern currently holds a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (Investigator Grant Leadership Level 2 commencing in 2022, $AU2.9M) and is CIA on a NHMRC Synergy Grant (SOLVE-CHD, $AU5M). She is Co-Chair of the Clinical and Preventative Cardiology Council of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand.