Arrhythmia and Heart Failure

Salim Yusuf

Executive Director; Senior Scientist

Salim Yusuf is an internationally renowned cardiologist and epidemiologist, whose work over 40 years has substantially influenced prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Born in India, medically qualified at St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore in 1976, he received a Rhodes Scholarship and obtained a DPhil from Oxford, during which he (along with Richard Peto, Rory Collins and Peter Sleight) initiated the concepts of large, simple trials, and meta-analysis. He proposed the concept of combination drug treatment for prevention of CVD to achieve large reductions in CVD with a single pill (now called the polypill concept), but more importantly has been evaluating the concept through large randomized trials.

He leads several global studies involving more than 60 countries in every inhabited continent of the world aimed at enhancing knowledge about the biological, behavioural and societal causes, consequences, and approaches to the control of heart diseases, and strokes through large multi-country programs such as INTERHEART, INTERSTROKE, and PURE.

He holds a Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario Research Chair and has received (among others) the Lifetime Research Achievement award of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society; the Paul Wood Silver Medal of the British Cardiac Society; the European Society of Cardiology gold medal, the clinical Research Prize of the American Heart Association and the International Award and the Braunwald Lecture of the American College of Cardiology. He has been inducted into the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame; been appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada, and received the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award in 2014. He has received four honorary doctorates, and is among the top 20 most cited health researchers in history.

Salim Yusuf has published more than 1,000 articles in refereed journals, rising to the second most cited researcher in the world for 2011. He has mentored more than 120 scientists, several of whom are in leadership positions across the globe. He has been President of the World Heart Federation (2015-2016), where he initiated several programs (the Emerging Leaders program, road maps for CVD control and a course for training primary care practitioners in CVD prevention) aimed at halving the CVD burden globally within a generation. The World Heart Federation has recognized his contributions by naming the program the Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Programme.

He is a Distinguished University Professor of Medicine, and Executive Director of the Population Health Research Institute, McMaster University and Chief Scientist, Hamilton Health Sciences.

Stuart Connolly

Senior Scientist

Stuart Connolly is a Professor of Medicine at McMaster University and a cardiac electrophysiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences. He became a faculty member at McMaster University in 1983 and was awarded a full professorship in 1994. He was also appointed as the inaugural holder of the Salim Yusuf Chair in Cardiology at McMaster University.

He has published more than 270 scientific articles in the field, and is currently a member of the editorial boards for a number of prominent cardiology journals, including Heart, the American Heart Journal and the Journal of Pacing and Electrophysiology. His main research interests are focused on the evaluation of treatments for heart rhythm disorders. His academic career has been largely devoted to the design and execution of controlled clinical trials in this area.

He holds a Masters degree from Fordham University, New York, and an MD from McGill University in Montreal. He received his specialist training in cardiology at the University of Toronto and at Stanford University.

Jeff Healey

Senior Scientist

Jeff Healey is a Senior Scientist in the Arrhythmia and Heart Failure research program at PHRI, an Associate Professor, Medicine, McMaster University, and Director of Arrhythmia Services at Hamilton  Health Sciences. His research involves conducting RCTs and large registries in the fields of atrial fibrillation and cardiac devices. He was the lead author of the SIMPLE trial, published in the Lancet in 2015, which demonstrated that implantable defibrillators could be safely inserted without performing intra-operative defibrillation testing.

He was the lead author of the ASSERT trial, published in New England Journal of Medicine in 2012, demonstrating the increased stroke risk associated with sub-clinical atrial fibrillation detected by pacemakers. Thomson-Reuters recognized ASSERT as the 38th most-cited scientific publication in 2012 (#16 in Medicine).

He was principal investigator and chair of the Canadian Stroke Prevention Intervention Network (CSPIN), a ten-year network grant funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and Industry. He is the past co-chair of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s Atrial Fibrillation Guidelines Committee. Jeff has published more than 185 manuscripts.

David Conen

Scientist

David Conen is a Scientist at PHRI, which he joined in 2016, and an Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, McMaster University. A trained internist and cardiologist from Basel, Switzerland, he obtained a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University.

His research activities involves the conduct of large epidemiological cohort studies to study risk factors for the occurrence of atrial fibrillation and its consequences, and research into therapies to prevent and treat perioperative atrial fibrillation. David is the Co-Principal Investigator of a large national cohort study to assess the relationship between atrial fibrillation and cognitive decline in Switzerland (Swiss-AF). He has published more than 130 peer-reviewed manuscripts in leading scientific journals as well as several reviews and editorials.

Darryl Leong

Scientist

Darryl Leong is a Scientist at PHRI, Director of the McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences Cardio-Oncology Program, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (Cardiology), McMaster University, and Staff Cardiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences. He has methodological expertise in clinical epidemiology and clinical trials, and content expertise in physical frailty, echocardiography, and cardio-oncology. His research is supported by the CIHR, and he has published more than 150 manuscripts including all the leading internal medical and cardiovascular journals.

He graduated from the University of Adelaide Medical School with Deans Listing and Honours for academic excellence, completed his cardiology training, Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Public Health, and Master of Biostatistics degrees at the University of Adelaide in Australia, and completed a post-doctorate fellowship in cardiovascular imaging at the Leiden University Medical Centre in The Netherlands, before re-locating to Canada.

Jason Roberts

Scientist

Jason Roberts is a clinical cardiac electrophysiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences and an Associate Professor of Medicine at McMaster University. As a clinician researcher, Jason’s interests focus on the genetics of cardiac arrhythmias, and evaluating the clinical utility of new drugs and gene-based therapies as treatments for both rare and common forms of cardiac arrhythmias. Previously, he worked at the University of Western Ontario as part of the London Heart Rhythm Program, where his research focused on refining insights into the clinical and genetic features of inherited arrhythmia syndromes.

He completed his training in cardiac electrophysiology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and his cardiology fellowship at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, during which he worked with Spartan Biosciences to develop the first point-of-care genetic test in clinical medicine (trial results published in The Lancet). He holds a Master’s degree in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics from UCSF.

Harriette Van Spall

Scientist

Harriette Van Spall is a Scientist for the Arrhythmia and Heart Failure research program and the Knowledge Translation and Health Systems program at PHRI, an Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (cardiology) at McMaster University. Her research, supported by CIHR and the Ministry of Health, is in quality of care and outcomes, knowledge translation, and health systems improvement pertaining to heart failure. She has won several research awards, and her work has been published in high-impact medical journals, including JAMA, Lancet, Circulation, and Annals of Internal Medicine.

She earned her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Toronto, and a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed postgraduate training in Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and Echocardiography at the University of Toronto.

Philip Joseph

Investigator

Philip Joseph’s research interests include cardiovascular prevention, global health, heart failure, and cardiac imaging. He is the principal investigator for the PURE-AF substudy, and the SPECT-MINS study, an investigator in the PURE study, and the G-CHF registry. He is also the project officer for the TIPS-3 study. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific papers.

He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, with certification in both internal medicine and cardiology. obtained his B.A.Sc at McMaster University in 2000, and his M.D. at Western University in 2004. His internal medicine (2004-2007) and cardiology (2007-2010) residencies were completed at the University of Ottawa. Subsequently, he completed additional clinical training in Nuclear Cardiology at McMaster University (2013), a M.Sc. in Health Research Methodology at McMaster (2010-13), and a post-doctoral research fellowship in PET imaging at Harvard University (2015).

William McIntyre

Investigator

William McIntyre is an Assistant Professor (cardiology), Department of Medicine, McMaster University, a cardiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences, and an Investigator in the Arrhythmia and Heart Failure research program at PHRI. His research interests include atrial fibrillation – including screening, detection and cardioversion, cardiac devices and methods in randomized clinical trials.

He holds fellowship awards from CIHR and the Canadian Stroke Prevention Intervention Network (C-SPIN). He holds research grants from the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) Atrial Fibrillation Awards Program and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. William has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, and was the 2018 Recipient of the CCS Trainee Excellence in Education Award.  He completed Medical School and Internal Medicine Residency at Queen’s University, and his adult cardiology residency at the University of Manitoba.

Jorge Wong

Scientist

Jorge Wong is a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences, as well as a scientist in the Arrhythmia and Heart Failure program at PHRI. His research interests focus primarily on the intersection between atrial fibrillation and heart failure, atrial fibrillation epidemiology and catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation. He holds research grants from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Cardiovascular Society, and Hamilton Health Sciences.

He obtained his MD at McMaster, followed by his internal medicine and cardiology training at the University of Western Ontario. Jorge subsequently completed his clinical electrophysiology fellowship at the University of Calgary and at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He has a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health, and is currently pursuing his PhD in Health Research Methods at McMaster.

Michael Wang

Investigator

Michael Ke Wang is an Investigator at PHRI and an MSc student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University, supervised by Dr. David Conen. His main interests are in perioperative medicine and perioperative atrial fibrillation. Michael is actively involved in the conduct of large international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from PHRI; he is the project officer of the COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF trials.

Michael is a Clinical Scholar in the Division of General Internal Medicine at McMaster University. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Ottawa and completed his internal medicine residency, general internal medicine fellowship, and perioperative vascular training at McMaster University.

Steffen Blum

Research Fellow

Steffen Blum is a clinical and research fellow at PHRI and McMaster University, supervised by PHRI scientist David Conen. He completed medical school at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. Steffen is a Swiss board-certified internist and has been a resident in cardiology at the University Hospital Basel, Switzerland, where he also completed his PhD in Clinical Research.

Steffen joined PHRI to build up a cohort of patients with myocardial injury of non-cardiac surgery (MINS), who are undergoing cardiac imaging with positron emission tomography for further risk stratification. Additionally, he is involved in the ASPIRE-AF and COP-AF trials and undergoes advanced training in nuclear cardiac imaging at the McMaster affiliated hospitals.

Mohamed Jalloh

Research Fellow

Mohamed Bella Jalloh is a research fellow at PHRI under the supervision of PHRI Scientist Harriette Van Spall. His main focus will include clinical trial methodology and implementation science. He will be involved in a multi-centre randomized controlled trial in heart failure.

Mohamed earned his medical degree from the University of Sierra Leone and a Master of Science from the University of Oxford. Previously, he was a global health scholar at Oxford, where he supported AMR and pandemic preparedness-focused global health initiatives.

Tina Stegmann

Research Fellow

Tina Stegmann is a Research Fellow at PHRI supervised by PHRI scientist David Conen. Her main research activities at PHRI will focus on the prevalence and distribution pattern of vascular brain lesions and correlating cognitive function in patients with atrial fibrillation compared to patients with high cardiovascular disease burden. A comparative analysis of large clinical trials in collaboration with the study team of the COMPASS-MIND trial is planned. Tina will also be involved in international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from the PHRI (COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF).

Tina obtained her medical degree from the University of Leipzig, Germany in 2017 and is a cardiology resident at the University Hospital Leipzig, Department of Cardiology since 2018.

Her previous work focused on the relationship between heart failure and the comorbidity atrial fibrillation, such as telemedical non-invasive interventions in patients with chronic heart failure compared to usual care. Tina mainly contributed to the Investigator-initiated German study addressing the mechanisms of Sacubitril-Valsartan on heart failure hemodynamics by using noninvasive pressure-volume analysis. Tina is involved in multicenter clinical trials as an investigator.

Tara McCready

Program Director

Tara McCready, PhD, oversees a variety of collaborative programs at PHRI, and serves as Project Manager for PHRI research studies and registries.

She was recruited to PHRI as a Program Director for the Canadian Network and Centre for Trials Internationally (CANNeCTIN), a national network funded by the CIHR/CFI Clinical Research Initiative program to improve the prevention and treatment of cardiac and vascular diseases and diabetes.

Previously the Executive Director of the Canadian Maternal, Infant, Child and Youth Research Network, Tara holds a PhD in Biochemistry and a MBA in Technology Commercialization from the University of Alberta.

Jessica Vincent

Program Director

Jessica Vincent has more than 15 years’ experience in coordinating and managing large, international clinical trials. As Associate Program Manager, she oversees interventional trials, registries, and observational research studies in the areas of perioperative medicine, cardiac surgery, and digital health.

She holds an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree from Queens University, and a Master of Clinical Epidemiology Degree from the University of Newcastle.

Sumathy Rangarajan

Program Director

Sumathy Rangarajan has been Program Director, Global Health, since 2016, preceded by many years’ service at PHRI in other roles. She oversees the PURE study team, as well as the INVICTUS rheumatic AF treatment trial, the CANPWR pediatric weight management registry, and others.

She holds both a Bachelor of Science Degree and a Master of Science degree from Pune University in India.

Alex Grinvalds

Project Manager

Alex Grinvalds has more than 15 years experience in clinical research, of which 13 have been at PHRI. He has worked on randomized studies, device trials and numerous registries. Currently, Alex is working on studies involving patients with heart failure and arrhythmias.

Alex holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Queen’s University and a Certificate in Clinical Research from Humber College.

Amy Krol

Project Manager

Amy Krol has been employed by the Population Health Research Institute over the last 19 years where she has worked on a number of large, international, industry-sponsored trails. For the past six years, she has focused her efforts on coordinating site management for the INVICTUS study, an investigator-initiated rheumatic AF trial & registry.

She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree (Honours Biology) from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Clinical Research Associate Certificate from McMaster University.

Divya Pattath

Project Manager

Divya Pattath has been with the Global Health team at PHRI since 2013, and has experience with managing large, international investigator-initiated clinical trials, observational studies and registries.

Divya holds a Masters Degree in Industrial Biotechnology and Enterprise from University of Bath, UK and Applied Clinical Research Certificate from McMaster University.