MD, PhD, FESC, FACC, FAHA, DTM&H
Professor of Cardiology, Faculty of Health Sciences
  
CHI research groups: Cardiac Disease in Maternity (CDM) (Lead), Heart of Africa (Lead)
CHI membership: Full member

Prof. Karen Sliwa is appointed as the Director of the Cape Heart Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town. She is also a senior cardiologist working at the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Groote Schuur Hospital, University of Cape Town and at UCT Private Academic Hospital. Her special areas of expertise are heart failure, structural heart diseases such as cardiomyopathy and cardiac disease in pregnancy.

Prof. Sliwa is widely recognised as a world expert in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), with a special interest in reducing mortality in women with cardiac disease in maternity. She has contributed to a better understanding of the pathophysiology, treatment options and awareness of peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM), a global disease particularly prevalent in African populations.
 
She led and still leads several inter-Africa and global research projects, which have had a major impact on creating knowledge about CVDs common in Africa and other Middle-to-Lower income regions, leading to changes in policy. Her considerable experience in setting up simple, cost-effective registries and web-based data entry platforms have had a major impact on planning several innovative research projects and has facilitated the training of physicians from several African countries, including Mozambique, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda and Tanzania. Her translational research from bench-bed-to-population studies has led to a much better understanding of CVDs such as rheumatic heart disease and heart failure due to various causes and subsequently to improved patient care.

She holds numerous awards such as the German Cardiac Society Paul Morawitz Award for Exceptional Cardiovascular Research ( 2013), an Honorary Doctorate University Diderot-Sorbonne, Paris, France (2017), European Cardiac Society Geoffrey Rose Award for Population Sciences ( 2019) and the South African Medical Research Council Gold award ( 2021). She has authored more than 450 publications, trained 35 PhD and Masters students. Her work is highly cited ( H-index 108, > 120 000  citations).

Professor Sliwa leads several high-profile special interest groups including a dedicated EORP Working Group on Peripartum Cardiomyopathy of the Heart Failure Association of European Society of Cardiology and the World Heart Federation Covid-19 and CVD program. Over her distinguished career, she has served in many notable roles eg as chair of the South African Heart Failure Association ( HeFSSA), President of the South African Heart Association (2014-2016), President of the World Heart Federation (2019-2020) and is currently Board Member and the Treasurer of the  Pan African Society of Cardiology ( 2021-2025). She holds advisory roles to the World Health Organisation on Rheumatic Heart Disease and Long-Covid Syndrome.

Research engagements:

• Heart Failure
• Structural Heart Disease such as Cardiomyopathy, Peripartum Cardiomyopathy
• Cardiac Disease in Pregnancy
• Rheumatic Heart Disease

PharmD, (Dijon, France), PhD

CHI research group: Cardioprotection (Lead)
CHI membership: Full member

Sandrine Lecour is Professor in physiology in the Department of Medicine, Deputy Director of the CHI and Head of the Cardioprotection group at the University of Cape Town. Her research interests include the delineation of intrinsic prosurvival signalling pathways activated in different pathophysiological conditions, including ischemic heart disease (she discovered the SAFE pathway in 2009). Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology, she is the founder of the South African Heart Society for Cardiovascular Research (SASCAR) and currently the treasurer of the International Society for Heart Research. As a B-rated NRF researcher, she is on the Editorial Boards of numerous scientific journals with high-impact factor.

Research engagements:

• Delineation of the SAFE pathway for cardioprotection
• Lipoprotein metabolism and cardiovascular risk factors
• Dietary melatonin/natural products for cardioprotection
• Signalling mechanisms in cancer drugs-induced cardiac toxicity

BSc(hons), MBChB, DPhi,l MD, FRCP, FRSSA

CHI research group: Cardiac Imaging and Inflammation (Lead)
CHI membership: Full member

Ntobeko Ntusi is a cardiologist and a Professor of Medicine, and is the Chair and Head of Medicine at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH); and is the Clinical Lead for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR) at UCT and GSH. He is a Principal Investigator at the CHI's Cardiac Imaging and Inflammation research group and the Cape Universities Body Imaging Centre (CUBIC) and a Collaborating Investigator at The Wellcome Trust Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Africa. He is the Editor in Chief of the South African Heart Journal and serves as Associate Editor for Circulation and BMC Medical Imaging. He has been actively engaged and contributed to an improved understanding of cardiomyopathy, inflammatory heart disease and heart failure in South Africa and globally.

Research engagements:

• Heart failure and cardiomyopathy
• Resistant hypertension
• Inflammatory heart disease
• Advanced cardiovascular imaging
• Molecular cardiology and immunology

Faculty of Health Sciences

CHI research group: Partnerships for Children with Heart Disease in Africa (PROTEA) (Lead)
CHI membership: Full member

Prof. Liesl Zühlke is a paediatric cardiologist in the Division of Paediatric Cardiology at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and directs the Children’s Heart Disease Research Unit which focuses on family-centred research into children’s heart diseases of relevance in Africa. Her research projects span congenital and rheumatic heart disease, HIV in adolescents, grown-up congenital heart disease and cardiac disease in women of childbearing age. She currently leads, among others, the PROTEA study, “Partnerships for Children with Heart Disease in Africa”, which aims to describe the epidemiology and genetic origins of congenital heart disease in several countries in Africa. She Is NRF-rated, has over 130 publications and over 26 000 citations.

Prof. Zühlke was the 2018 recipient of the prestigious MRC/DfID African Research Leader Award, a finalist in the 22nd National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF)-South32 Awards and is designated one of the top three scholars in rheumatic heart disease research worldwide. Internationally she serves as the President of Reach (Rheumatic Heart Disease, Evidence, Advocacy, Communication and Hope), a board member of the World Heart Federation, an international scientific advisory board of Children's Heart Link and Global ARCH and an executive member of SAVAC (Strep A Vaccine Global Consortium).

As the only womxn full Professor of Paediatric Cardiology in the country, she has achieved the highest leadership positions within cardiology in South Africa; President of the Paediatric Cardiac Society of South Africa, President of the South African Heart Association and currently chair of both the PANPACH (Paediatric and Congenital) and Rheumatic Heart Disease Task Forces of the Pan-African Society of Cardiology.

Research engagements:

• Congenital Heart Disease
• Rheumatic Heart Disease
• Cardiac disease in women of childbearing age
• Heart Disease associated with COVID-19/MIS-C
• HIV-associated Heart Disease

MBChB, MMed (Int Med), FCP (SA), PhD
 
CHI research group: Lipid Research (Lead)
CHI membership: Full member

Dirk Blom is the Head of the Division of Lipidology at the University of Cape Town and heads the Lipid Clinic at Groote Schuur Hospital. His personal research interests include genetic disorders of lipoprotein metabolism with a particular emphasis on dysbetalipoproteinaemia and familial hypercholesterolaemia. Professor Blom is a member of multiple international societies and currently serves on the executive committee of the Lipid and Atherosclerosis Society of Southern Africa. He has published in numerous high-impact peer-reviewed journals.

Research engagements:

• Clinical trials – HoFH, HeFH, FCS, statin intolerance
• Homozygous FH registry
• Dysbetalipoproteinaemia in Ghana
• Statin-associated myalgia – pharmacogenomic study

Internal Medicine & Infectious Diseases Specialist, DTMPH, MSc International Health
 
CHI research groups: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH) (Lead) | Heart of Africa
CHI membership: Full member

Friedrich Thienemann undertook his post-graduate training in internal medicine, infectious diseases, tropical medicine and global health at Charité University Hospital Berlin and the University of Cape Town. In 2009, he joined the Department of Medicine and Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town and served as an investigator of several EU, NIH and university-funded projects and successfully administered multi-national, multi-site clinical trials and cohort studies across Africa. In 2019, Friedrich Thienemann established the research group General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH) with two sites, at the University of Zurich and the Cape Heart Institute of the University of Cape Town. His work is on optimising the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, understanding the intersection of infectious and cardiovascular disease and the role of molecular imaging in infective lung disease. He lives between Zurich and Cape Town.

Research engagements:

• Understanding tuberculosis and HIV-associated to pulmonary hypertension (PAPCUO II)
• Preventing tuberculosis relapse and chronic lung disease (StatinTB) 
• Shortening tuberculosis treatment duration (PredictTB)
•  Tuberculosis treatment shortening trials with for new drugs (PAN-TB)
• Tuberculosis vaccine discovery and clinical testing
• Spectrum of disease and gene expression signature of spinal tuberculosis

CHI research group: Cardiovascular Genetics (CVG) (Lead)
CHI membership: Full member

Professor Gasnat Shaboodien is the Director of the Cardiovascular Genetics laboratory and has also been the group leader since 2013. She is a trained molecular geneticist with her main areas of in interest being the genetics of inherited cardiac diseases and other rare disorders. Her research aims to discover the genetic causes of inherited heart diseases that cause sudden death or that require heart transplants. This has involved the study of rare families with monogenic disease and the delineation of the genetic architecture of complex traits associated with sudden death (such as cardiac hypertrophy). 
 
In 2009 her team reported the first multicenter study on the clinical characteristics, survival experience, and profile of PKP2 gene mutations in patients with ARVC (heart disease) from the African continent. In 2013 they found a new gene (FAM111B) as the cause of a newly reported disease called hereditary fibrosing poikiloderma and then in 2017, they made headline news when they discovered a new gene (CDH2) as the cause of sudden cardiac death in ARVC. Professor Shaboodien and her team have also established the first zebrafish unit at the University of Cape Town (UCT), thereby introducing the zebrafish as a new disease model at UCT.

Research engagements:

• Cardiomyopathies (MAIN)
• Neuromuscular disease
• Alzheimer's disease

MBChB, Diploma in the Management of HIV and AIDS, MBA candidate

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH)
CHI membership: Associate member

Sandra Mukasa is a senior medical officer. She trained at the University of Cape Town and later did her post-graduate diploma in HIV management at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. She worked for the City of Cape Town in primary health care clinics focusing on HIV and TB management before she joined the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine as a sub-investigator in 2015. She has worked on single and multicentre studies and clinical trials and has been the lead site investigator since 2017. In 2019, she became the deputy director of the General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH) research group. 

Research engagements:

• Tuberculosis treatment trials
• Tuberculosis vaccine trials
• Post tuberculosis cardiopulmonary disease
• Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis household contact studies

MBChB

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH)
CHI membership: Associate member

Karen Wolmarans moved to Cape Town after completing her MBChB studies at the University of Pretoria in 1987. She has worked at Groote Schuur Hospital and The Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, Cape Town. She joined the Division of Lipidology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town in 1997 and has been a sub-investigator on numerous clinical research studies. Her particular interest is in the prevention of Atherosclerosis and the use of ultrasound to measure Carotid Intima-Media Thickness. She joined the General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH) research group and the StatinTB trial in March 2020 as a sub-investigator. 

Research engagements:

• Inherited lipid disorders and Diabetes mellitus
• Post tuberculosis cardiopulmonary disease
• Spirometry in tuberculosis

MBChB
University of Cape Town

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH)
CHI membership: Affiliate member

Fareda Jakoet-Bassier is a senior Medical Officer. She completed her MBChB at the University of Cape Town. After working at Groote Schuur Hospital and Vredenburg District Hospital, she returned to Cape Town and worked in primary health care for the past ten years. Because she holds a special interest in Infectious Diseases, she has spent the majority of her time, in the Khayelitsha sub-district, focusing on the treatment of TB/MDR-TB and HIV. She joined the Cape Heart Institute as a Research Officer in December 2021. Her research scope is diverse as she participates in multiple research studies on cardiovascular disease, forming part of the Cardiac Disease in Maternity research group.  She also shares her time working with the Global Medicine and General Health (GMGH) research.

Research engagements:

• Post tuberculosis cardiopulmonary disease
• Spirometry in Tuberculosis
• Cardiac disease in Maternity Registry
• Peripartum Cardiomyopathy

Cardiologist | FESC, MD (Universidade Eduado Mondlane,Mozambique)
Co-Chair Non-Communicable Disease and Injury (NCDI) Poverty Network

CHI research group: Cardiac Disease in Maternity
CHI membership: Scientific Advisory Board

Dr Mocumbi is Associate Professor of Cardiology at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane and lead researcher at the Non-Communicable Diseases Division of the Instituto Nacional de Saúde (both in Mozambique). She is Affiliated Associated Professor at the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington, and Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town.
Her research focus is neglected cardiovascular diseases, especially rheumatic heart disease, cardiomyopathies, heart failure in children and adolescents, and women’s cardiovascular health. Dr. Mocumbi is Co-Chair of the Pan African Society of Cardiology Taskforce on Reproductive Health Services for Women with Cardiovascular Disease, the Working Group on Rheumatic Heart Disease Prevention and Control at the World Heart Federation, and the global Non-Communicable Diseases and Injuries of Poverty Network.

Research engagements:

• Colors to Save Heart Program (World Heart Federation)
• PEN Plus Program in Mozambique (NCDI Poverty Network)
• Reproductive Health Services for Women with Cardiovascular Diseases (RESCUE)
• System Analysis and Improvement Approach to Improve Hypertension Management Cascade (SCALE SAIA-HTN)

MBBS, PhD, FWACP

CHI research group: Heart of Africa 
CHI membership: Affiliate member

Dr Ojji is a faculty member College of Health Sciences, University of Abuja, and an Honorary Consultant Physician/Cardiologist at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, Abuja, Nigeria. He is also the Lead Investigator, Cardiovascular Research Unit, University of Abuja and University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, Abuja, and the Deputy Directors, Centre for Undergraduate Research and the Institute for Advanced Medical Research and Training both of the University of Abuja.

Dr Ojji is a practising cardiologist, researcher and teacher, and he is interested in global cardiovascular health epidemiology especially in the black population, clinical trials in hypertension and heart failure, and policy research and training. His work spans defining the spectrum of hypertensive heart disease and hypertensive heart failure in the black population to hypertension pharmacotherapy in the same population and establishing a system for hypertension and cardiovascular care in the primary care level in low- and middle-income countries. 

He has been involved in a number of multinational observational and clinical trials including RELY-Atrial Fibrillation registry, THESUS (The Sub-Saharan Africa Survey of Heart Failure) study, IMPI (Prednisolone and Mycobacterium indicus pranii in tuberculous pericarditis) trial, BA-HEF (Bi treatment with hydralazine/nitrates vs. placebo in Africans admitted with acute HEart Failure) trial, REMEDY (Global Rheumatic Heart Disease Registry), INTRE-CHF (International Congestive Heart Failure) and ECHO Normal.

He led the CREOLE (Comparison of Three Combination Therapies in Lowering Blood Pressure in Black Africans) trial which was a multi-centre, multinational, randomised trial in 10 sites in 6 sub-Saharan African countries demonstrating the benefits of calcium channel blocker-based dual therapy in the blacks residing in sub-Saharan Africa.

He has over 86 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals including New England Journal of Medicine, American Heart Journal, European Journal Heart Failure, Journal of Hypertension, European Heart Journal, Journal Human Hypertension, Journal American Medical Association and The Lancet. Dr Ojji seeks to improve cardiovascular care in the black population residing in low and middle-income countries. He is married with two children. 

Research engagements:

• RO1 NIH/NHLBI Funded Transforming Hypertension Management in Nigeria (mPI)
• UG3/UH3 NIH/NHLBI Funded Evaluating the Implementation and Scale-Up of Nigeria National Sodium Reduction Program (mPI)
• UG3/UH3, NIH/NHLBI Funded Managing Hypertension among People Living with HIV: an Integrated Model (MAP-IT) (mPI)
• University of Cambridge GCRF QR Funded: The evidence-based treatment of hypertensive heart failure in sub-Saharan Africa: A feasibility study (Co-PI) 

Professor - Molecular Cardiology and Cardiovascular Complications in Oncology Therapies

CHI membership: Scientific Advisory Board

Denise Hilfiker-Kleiner received her PhD in 1994 at the University of Zurich and Emory University, Atlanta and her Habilitation 2006 at Hannover Medical School (MHH). In 2008 she became professor for Molecular Cardiology at the MHH. From 2013-2019 she was dean of research of the MHH. Since 2021 she is dean of the medical faculty of the Philipps University Marburg and leads the institute of cardiovascular complications in pregnancy and in oncologic therapies, at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. She has a longstanding experience in analyzing signaling pathways in cardiac cells relevant for cardiac physiological and pathophysiological processes as well as for endogenous regeneration abilities of the heart especially after pregnancy or treatment with cardio toxic agents.

She published over 200 articles in top-ranked journals, i.e. Cell, Nature, JCI, EHJ, EMBO, Circulation and many others. Her metrics are: h-index: 69, RG score 46.95 citations: 17050 citations, reads: 51270. She was involved in several research consortia of the DFG and was a core PI of the REBIRTH Excellence Cluster at the MHH. In addition, she was lead scientist and organizer of the multicenter clinical trial on the efficacy of Bromocriptin in PPCM funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). She is member of the transatlantic network of excellence on “targeted approaches for prevention and treatment anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity”.

She obtained many prestigious prices (among others the outstanding achievement award of the ESC and the science award of the state of lower Saxony). She was dean of research of the MHH (2013-2020) and is the dean of the medical faculty of the Philipps University of Marburg. She is fellow of the ESC, member of the German Cardiology Program Committee and board member of the Technion society and was secretary of the International Society of Heart Research (ISHR). In her role as dean of research at the MHH she was in the board of the Hannover Unified Biobank HUB. She is a member of the Supervisory Board of the Charité Berlin and one of 25 members of the German Council of Science and Humanities. 

Research engagements:

• Cardiovascular complications in pregnancy
• Cardiovascular complications of oncologic therapies
• Cardiac pathophysiology with focus on gene regulation
• Inter- and itra cellular communication  

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH)

BCom (Hons) Information Systems, MPhil Candidate

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH)  

Antoneta Mashinyira is the Data Quality Officer in the General Medicine and Global Health (GMGH) research group and oversees all data development and management at GMGH. Her journey in research started when she joined CIDRI-Africa at the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine at UCT as a data capture more than ten years ago. She developed a passion for information systems, especially in healthcare and studied data management and information systems. In 2013, Antoneta was promoted to become the Data Control Coordinator at CIDRI-Africa, coordinating data capture and cleaning and quality management across multiple studies, including multicentre randomised controlled trials and cohort studies. Antoneta joined GMGH in 2020. Her particular interest is in technological innovations as healthcare interventions to improve health outcomes in sub-Saharan African countries. Antoneta is currently a fellow in the Fogarty HIV-associated TB Training Program.

Research engagements:

• MDR-TB household contact studies (MDR HHC study)
• Reducing TB treatment duration (PredictTB)
• Preventing tuberculosis relapse and chronic lung disease (StatinTB)

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH)

CHI research group: Cardiovascular Genetics Group (CVG)

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH)

CHI research group: Cardioprotection

Carmelita Abrahams is a PhD candidate within the Cardioprotection research group led by Prof Sandrine Lecour. Her research interests include cardio-oncology, cardiotoxicity, doxorubicin (DOX), and high-density lipoprotein particles. As part of her PhD, she established an in vivo mouse breast cancer model of DOX-induced cardiotoxicity. She is a member of the South African Heart Association and the International Society for Heart Research.

Research engagements:

• Mechanisms for DOX-induced cardiotoxicity
• Cardioprotection against DOX-induced cardiotoxicity

University of Cape Town 

CHI research group: Cardiac Imaging and Inflammation

Olukayode Aremu is a physiologist by training who is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Cape Heart Institute at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. In his Doctorate program supervised by Prof. Ntobeko Ntusi, Olukayode characterised the phenotypes of myocardial inflammation, fibrosis and remodelling in rheumatic heart disease patients using multiparametric cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging and autophagy markers. Olukayode’s keen interest is to discontinue the debilitating effect of cardiovascular diseases. Olukayode is a member of the Society of Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (SCMR) and Physiological Society of Southern Africa. He also currently serves as an associate editor for Magnetochemistry (MDPI) journal. 

Research engagements:

• Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaginge
• Rheumatic heart disease
• Post tuberculosis cardiopulmonary disease
• Hypertension ExpLored in Postpartum Follow-Up in mid-life South Africa (HELPFUL-ZA)

MBChB, MSC (Stellenbosch University), PhD (KU Leuven)

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH) 
CHI membership: Associate member

Patrick Katoto is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Global Health. He is the co-founder and co-Director of the Centre for Tropical Diseases and Global Health at the Catholic University of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has more than ten years of working experience as a clinician, academic, and advisor for multiple public and private health agencies.He works on various projects of global health concern to produce evidence to inform decision making to address HIV, tuberculosis, vaccine-preventable diseases, non-communicable diseases, air pollution in resource-limited settings and recently COVID-19. He is co-investigator of the Baseline African Sepsis Incidence Survey (BASIS) and of the StatinTB trial, a proof-of-concept study to reduce post-tuberculosis lung diseases and has published more than 50 articles including in The Lancet and JACC.

Patrick is a Fogarty Fellow (HIV-comorbidity research training programme in LMICs), a Fellow of the Central & West Africa Implementation Science Alliance for the establishment of a network in implementation research (University of Maryland Baltimore, Institute of Human Virology Nigeria, Yale University) to accelerate the scaling up of novel diagnostic tools and clinical guidelines to improve children's health, a fellow of the Pan-African Scientific Research Council and a member of the Institute for Health Metrics' Global Burden of Diseases project (University of Washington). He  teaches at several African universities and participates in the Globalization and Sustainable Development course at the University of Hasselt in Belgium. He serves as  faculty at The Pan African Thoracic Society - Methods in Epidemiology, Clinical, and Operations Research and as Team Leader of the graduate tracking Technical Working Group at the African Forum for Research and Education. He also serves as academic editor of PLOS Global Public Health and as associate editor of the Pan African Medical Journal.

Research engagements:

• HIV/AIDS-cardiovascular diseases
• Post-tuberculosis cardiorespiratory diseases
• Vaccines-preventable diseases and Vaccinology
• Health effects of air pollution, research methodology and Evidence to Inform Decision Making

MSc, PhD (Medicine)
Cape Heart Institute, University of Cape Town 

CHI research group: Cardiac Disease in Maternity
CHI membership: Affiliate Member

Vitaris Kodogo is a basic medical science researcher with an interest in translational cardiovascular studies and clinical proteomics. He did his Ph.D. at the Cape Heart Institute, and his research focuses on understanding the mechanisms involved in cardiac remodeling during pregnancy and the reverse process.  He also has an interest in invitro, ex-vivo, and invivo models of cardiovascular research.  

Research engagements:

• Translational cardiovascular research
• PPCM biomarker study
• Cardiomyopathy models
• Rodent echocardiography

University College London and University College London Hospital 

CHI membership: Scientific Advisory Board

Derek M Yellon PhD, DSc (UK), DSc (SA), FRCP, FACC, FESC, FAHA, FBCS is Professor of Molecular & Cellular Cardiology at University College London (UCL) & Director of the Hatter Cardiovascular Institute UCL & UCL Hospital.  He is also a Hon Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town and holds Honorary Chairs at the University of South Alabama in the USA, and the North China Coal Medical University in China.

He has published in excess of 600 full papers and edited 23 books. He runs a translational research Institute whose interest relates to the pathophysiology of acute MI & cardioprotection in the setting of diabetes, ischaemia/reperfusion injury & molecular aspects of ischaemic injury in both the basic and clinical arena.

Research engagements:

• Cardioprotection in the basic and clinical setting
• The pathophysiology of  ischaemia and reperfusion injury
• Cardio-Oncology
• Neuroprotection in the setting of ischaemixc stroke

CHI research group: Cardiac Imaging & Inflammation Research Group 

Dr Lumngwena joined the Cape Heart Institutes as a post-doctoral research fellow on a project focused on understanding the pathogenesis of Rheumatic valvular heart disease (RHD) in a South African cohort in Cape Town. Her interests are understanding the basic mechanisms of the progression of RHD. She is studying differential protein expression in heart tissues and in the blood of RHD patients to understand changes due to RHD. She is also interested in profiling autoimmune proteins in heart valve tissues and blood of RHD to understand epitopes that drive RHD progression. Moreover, she seeks to identify and differentiate autoimmune proteins shuttled by blood vesicles to drive the progression of RHD.
 
Research engagements:

• Translational cardiovascular research
• Proteomics/ Protein analyses
• Mass spectrometry/Basic bio-informatics visualization
• Extracellular vesicles in disease pathogenesis

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH) 
CHI membership: Affiliate member

Julian Scherer is a PhD student enrolled at the University of Cape Town and supervised by Prof. Friedrich Thienemann (CHI & Department of Medicine) and Prof. Michael Held (Division of Orthopaedic Surgery) and an Affiliated Member at the CHI. Julian is also a surgical registrar at the Department of Traumatology of the University Hospital Zurich. After conducting research on traumatic spinal disorders, his PhD now aims to better understand the pathogenesis of spinal TB and its distributional patterns. This includes the use of whole-body 18F-FDG PET/CT performed at Cape Universities Body Imaging Centre (CUBIC) as a new diagnostic tool for disseminated TB and gene expression profiling, hypothesizing that isolated spinal TB has a distinct gene expression profile when compared to disseminated TB with spinal involvement. The results of this work aim to improve the understanding of the different manifestations of TB and to personalize TB therapy.

Research engagements:

• Spinal TB
• PET/CT and MRI imaging in TB
• Gene expression analysis
• Trauma surgery