PVRI 2027 Programme

We are thrilled to bring you a new lunch event that will bring together colleagues working in, or supporting PH in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in a relaxed setting. 

Hear how inspirational speakers made change happen in low-resource settings, make new connections for practical change, put forward your asks and offers to the community, and be in for a chance of winning a free mentoring session from global PH senior experts.

For the fourth-year, we are delighted to bring this inspiring luncheon to you. Recognising the challenges women in PH often face, this luncheon celebrates and amplifies women’s voices. 

Through shared stories, meaningful conversations and new connections, this event helps shape a more inclusive, diverse and ambitious global PH community. Lasting change is only made when everyone is involved; men are warmly welcome to attend.

Designed for early career professionals, this mentoring event offers a unique opportunity to meet, learn from, and build connections with globally renowned PH physicians and researchers in a supportive and informal setting.

 Through themed mentoring conversations, this is a chance to gain confidence, broaden your network and seek advice on the next step in your PH career.

Jane A. Leopold is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Women’s Interventional Cardiology Health Initiative and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Cores at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her research involves using precision medicine approaches to characterize complex cardiopulmonary vascular diseases. Her work has been funded by the NIH/NHLBI, the American Heart Association, the Lerner Foundation and she was named a Thomas W. Smith MD Scholar. She has authored numerous scientific manuscripts, editorials and book chapters and has been issued patents on her work. She is the recipient of several research awards and is a member of the Association of University Cardiologists. She serves on several national and international research and peer review committees. Many of her mentees have gone on to national and international leadership positions. She is also the Deputy Editor for cardiology at the New England Journal of Medicine.

Khodr Tello is a physician-scientist specializing in pulmonary hypertension, right ventricular function, and cardio-pulmonary interactions. He serves as Head of Pulmonology and Respiratory Medicine at Krankenhaus Nordwest Frankfurt and as Managing Deputy Director at Pulmology and Intensive Care Medicine at University Hospital Giessen and Marburg / Justus Liebig University Giessen.

Prof. Tello focuses on RV–pulmonary arterial coupling and advanced hemodynamics in pulmonary hypertension. He has authored numerous publications in leading journals including Circulation, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, and European Respiratory Journal. His work has received international recognition through invited lectures, scientific awards, and leadership roles in major pulmonary vascular research collaborations.

Aleksandra Babicheva is an Assistant Professor at The Hormel Institute and a faculty member at the Lillehei Heart Institute at the Department of Medicine, the University of Minnesota. She received her PhD in Physiology at Astrakhan State University in Russia, where she focused on the pathophysiology of serotonin receptors in rats with traumatic shock. She completed postdoctoral training in translational research of lung vascular diseases at the University of Arizona and University of California San Diego, using animal models and human specimens to study pathogenic mechanisms of pulmonary hypertension. Her lab at The Hormel Institute now focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of vascular remodelling and right ventricle failure in pulmonary hypertension, aiming to identify new targets for developing effective treatments for patients.

Valentina Mercurio is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (tenure-track) at the Department of Translational Medical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Her clinical and research activity focuses on heart failure and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), non-invasive cardiovascular imaging and right ventricular function. 
She has held a postdoctoral research fellowship at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD, USA), where she conducted research on PAH and advanced echocardiography. She is an active member of several international scientific societies. She co-authored the Guidelines for the Echocardiographic Assessment of the Right Heart in Adults and Special Considerations in Pulmonary Hypertension from the American Society of Echocardiography, and was part of the task force on risk stratification and treatment goals in PAH during the 7th WSPH. 
She has authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications (H-index 30) and has received multiple international awards. Her work contributes to advancing risk stratification and therapeutic strategies in PAH.

Shahin Moledina is a Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and Director of the UK National Paediatric Pulmonary Hypertension Service. He is also Co-Lead of the Paediatric and Congenital Heart Disease Task Force of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute. His research focuses on pulmonary hypertension, including disease phenotyping, outcomes research, and clinical trials. He has a particular interest in cardiac MRI and advanced cardiovascular imaging. His group leads a national pulmonary hypertension research registry and linked biorepository, supporting translational research and clinical trial development to improve patient outcomes.

Steve Niederer is Chair in Biomedical Engineering at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. His research focuses on computational modelling, biomedical engineering, cardiac physiology, and cardiovascular disease, with a particular interest in using patient-specific models to support clinical decision-making.

He develops computational models of the heart and cardiovascular system that bring together experimental, imaging, and clinical data. His work includes cardiac electrophysiology, heart failure, digital twins, and treatment optimisation, helping to improve understanding of disease mechanisms and how therapies may work for individual patients.

Peter Nyasulu is Professor of Epidemiology and Executive Head of the Department of Global Health in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He is an infectious diseases epidemiologist with a strong focus on mentorship, capacity building, and developing future research leaders in sub-Saharan Africa.

His research spans infectious diseases, public health, and cardiopulmonary disease, including the long-term effects of COVID-19 and the links between infection, lung disease, and PH. He is also a leader in PVRI’s Infection in Pulmonary Vascular Disease Consortium, supporting global collaboration to improve understanding of infection-related pulmonary vascular disease.

Sasha Prisco, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Cardiovascular Division at the University of Minnesota. She is a cardiovascular physician-scientist and clinical PH specialist, with a basic and translational research programme focused on improving outcomes for PH patients.
Her lab investigates the mechanisms that drive pulmonary vascular remodelling and right ventricular dysfunction in PH. This work brings together studies in rodent models with findings from patients to better understand how changes in the pulmonary circulation affect the right heart.
Through her clinical and research work, she aims to identify new therapeutic approaches for PH and right ventricular dysfunction, supporting earlier intervention, improved risk assessment, and more effective patient care.

Rogerio Souza is Full Professor of Pulmonary Medicine at the University of São Paulo Medical School and works in the Pulmonary Division at the Heart Institute in São Paulo, Brazil. His clinical and research work focuses on PH, pulmonary circulation, and pulmonary vascular disease.
His research includes pulmonary arterial hypertension, schistosomiasis-associated PH, chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, and clinical outcomes in PH. He is also recipient of the Pulmonary Hypertension Research Award from the European Respiratory Society.

Suree Sompradeekul is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand. She earned her MD. with First Class Honors from Siriraj Hospital and completed a fellowship training in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of California, San Diego in the US. She is currently a head of pulmonary vascular disease assembly and a Vice- President of the Thoracic Society of Thailand under Royal Patronage.

Her work focuses on PH and pulmonary vascular disease, including chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH), pulmonary embolism and treatment approaches for patients with complex cardiopulmonary disease. She has contributed to research on CTEPH in Thailand, pulmonary embolism management in Asia, and Thai PH guidelines, supporting better recognition, diagnosis and care for people living with PH.

Ryan Tedford is a Professor of Medicine/Cardiology and holds the Dr. Peter C. Gazes Endowed Chair in Heart Failure at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC. He currently serves as the section head of heart failure and medical director of cardiac transplantation.  He also established and directs the Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Fellowship Program at MUSC. Dr. Tedford is an internationally recognized clinical researcher and has published over 350 peer-reviewed original research manuscripts, invited expert reviews, editorials and book chapters.  His research efforts are focused on hemodynamic assessment of right ventricle function and its interaction with the pulmonary circulation and left heart. This research spans the fields of pulmonary hypertension, left heart disease, exercise physiology, hemodynamics, systemic sclerosis and mechanical circulatory support.  He participates on numerous scientific advisory boards and clinical trial steering committees.    He was the co-chair of the PH due to left heart disease task force for 7th World Symposium on Pulmonary Hypertension.  He is currently a deputy editor for Circulation.  He previously served a deputy editor for the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation and on the editorial boards for Circulation: Heart Failure¸ CHEST and JACC: Heart Failure.  

Athiththan Yogeswaran is a clinician-scientist at Justus Liebig University Giessen, the Institute for Lung Health in Giessen, Germany, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany. His work focuses on pulmonary hypertension, with a particular emphasis on right ventricular function, right ventricular–pulmonary arterial coupling, haemodynamics, and risk stratification.

He is based in the Department of Internal Medicine, working across pneumology and intensive care medicine. A major focus of his research is the use of large-scale registries and multi-centre datasets to better understand disease progression, outcomes, and treatment effects in pulmonary hypertension. In particular, he is actively involved in the PVRI GoDeep meta-registry, contributing to deep phenotyping and integrative analyses across PH populations worldwide. His work aims to translate registry-based insights into improved risk assessment and more individualised patient care in pulmonary vascular disease.

Dingyi Wang is a researcher at China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing, where she is affiliated with the National Center for Respiratory Medicine, the State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Health and Multimorbidity, and the National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases.
Her work focuses on PH, pulmonary embolism, and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). Her research includes real-world studies on the management and outcomes of CTEPH, pulmonary embolism epidemiology, right ventricular dysfunction after pulmonary embolism, and multi-organ reflects linked to venous thromboembolism. Through this work, she contributes to improving clinical understanding, risk assessment, and patient care in pulmonary vascular disease.