Meet the Legends and Experts

Meet with your cardiology heroes this summer!

#ESCCongress will be attended by inspirational members of the global cardiology community, giving you the chance to meet your heroes and ask all your burning questions! 

This is an unmissable opportunity to network with practice-changing cardiologists including members of the Guidelines taskforce, trialists, and international experts in each specialty.

There will also be many chances to engage with your peers throughout congress to share knowledge and strengthen relationships.

See all faculty and presenters who will be in London

ESC Named Lectures

Don't miss presentations from international leading experts during ESC Named Lectures given in recognition of the longstanding contribution of prominent individuals.

John Eric Deanfield (London, UK) 

ESC Geoffrey Rose Lecture in Population Sciences

John Deanfield CBE is Professor of Cardiology at University College London (UCL) and Director of National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research (NICOR) which incorporates the national databases for cardiovascular outcomes. Deanfield undertook his training at Churchill College, Cambridge, the Middlesex, Hammersmith and Great Ormond Street Hospitals, London. His principal interests are vascular medicine, opportunities for lifetime management of cardiovascular risk and large scale cardiovascular outcomes research. He has been at the forefront in describing the impact of obesity, cholesterol, diabetes, smoking and other risk factors on health in later life, through coordination of multiple large longitudinal cardiovascular studies in population throughout lifetime. He Chaired the Joint British Societies (JBS3) National Guidelines for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention (2014) and led the development of the public facing Heart Age Tool (2015).

Tone Merete Norekval (Bergen, Norway)

ESC Florence Nightingale Lecture in Nurse-Led Research

Holger Thiele (Leipzig, Germany)

ESC Andreas Gruntzig Lecture on Interventional Cardiology

Prof. Dr. Holger Thiele, MD, FESC Heart Center Leipzig at University of Leipzig, Germany Holger Thiele is the Medical Director of the Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology at the Heart Center Leipzig at University of Leipzig which is one of the largest heart centers in Europe. He is full professor of cardiology at the University of Leipzig. He is also the president-elect of the German Cardiac Society. His main research interests are acute myocardial infarction, acute heart failure, cardiogenic shock, mechanical circulatory support, acute cardiovascular care, interventional cardiology and structural heart disease. Professor Thiele has published over 750 articles in international scientific journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, JAMA, Circulation, JACC, and the European Heart Journal with a cumulative impact factor of >7400, H-Index 109. He has received multiple awards from the German Society of Cardiology and other organisations.

Molly Stevens (London, UK)

ESC Paul Hugenholtz lecture for innovation

Professor Dame Molly Stevens FREng FRS is John Black Professor of Bionanoscience at the University of Oxford and part-time Professor at Imperial College London and the Karolinska Institute. She earned a B.S. in Pharmacy at the University of Bath and a Ph.D. in biophysics at the University of Nottingham, before moving to MIT for her postdoc in Professor Robert Langer’s group. Professor Stevens’ multidisciplinary research balances the investigation of fundamental science with the development of technologies and designer biomaterials to address some of the major healthcare challenges across diagnostics, advanced therapeutics and regenerative medicine.  Her research influence scientists around the world (>430 publications, h-index 109, >50k citations). The impact of her work is recognised by numerous accolades, including the 2023 Novonordisk Prize. Professor Stevens’ work has a strong translational drive, focussed on translating scientific innovation into practical solutions to benefit patients and society. She is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of four spin-off companies in the diagnostics, advanced therapeutics, and regenerative medicine space. She has been recently appointed as Oxford University Champion for Women and Diversity in Entrepreneurships.

Cristina Basso (Padua, Italy)

ESC William Harvey Lecture on Basic Science

Cristina Basso is Full Professor of Pathology at the University of Padua, Padova, Italy. Cardiologist, Anatomo-Pathologist and PhD in Cardiological Sciences, she has conducted correlations of anatomo-clinical nature in the cardiovascular field, with translational approach for application in the clinical field. She is the Director of the Cardiovascular Pathology Unit, National Health System. Her research fields are sudden death, cardiomyopathies and myocarditis, coronary heart disease, pathology of arrhythmias and conduction tissue, heart tumors and valve diseases. As such, it is part of National and International Research Networks and coordinates the NorthEast Italy Veneto Region Network for Cardiovascular Pathology. She is member of ESC WGs, Nucleus Member of the Myocardial &Pericardial disease WG, and Basic Science Council Member as well as Past President of the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology.

Julie De Backer (Mainz, Germany)

ESC Rene Laennec Lecture on Clinical Cardiology

Julie De Backer, MD, PhD, FESC, is a genetic cardiologist at Ghent University Hospital, Belgium. She heads the Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) clinic and coordinates interdisciplinary programs for ACHD & Heritable Thoracic Aortic Disease (HTAD) patients, with a focus on patient centered care. She is appointed full professor at the Ghent University. Her translational research focuses on in-depth cardiovascular profiling in Marfan syndrome and HTAD, exploring geno/phenotype relationships. Julie De Backer and her team employ genetic animal models in search for novel treatment targets. She is an active member of VASCERN, ESC's Aorta and Peripheral Vascular Disease Working Group, and the Montalcino Aortic Consortium. She co-chaired the 2020 ESC ACHD guidelines and chairs the 2025 ESC pregnancy guidelines.

2024 ESC Gold Medalists

In addition, 2024 ESC Gold Medals honour cardiovascular specialists who have gained outstanding achievements in original research and scientific excellence.

Get inspired by their fulfilment in various fields of cardiology.

Karin Sipido (Leuven, Belgium)

Milton Packer (Dallas, USA)

Milton Packer is the Distinguished Scholar in Cardiovascular Science at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas and Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London. He is an internationally recognized clinical investigator who has made many seminal contributions to the field of heart failure, both in understanding its mechanisms and defining its rational management. His work has spanned more than 40 years and has established the cornerstone of the current modern treatments for heart failure, including ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers, angiotensin neprilysin inhibitors and SGLT2 inhibitors. He proposed the neurohormonal hypothesis of heart failure in 1992. He has led 20 large-scale international trials of novel interventions for heart failure and has received many international awards in recognition of his achievements. His column on MedPage Today received the Jesse H. Neal Award, Best Commentary/Blog; the award is equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize for business journalism.

Peter J Schwartz (Milan, Italy)

Peter J. Schwartz, MD is the the Director of the Center for Cardiac Arrhythmias of Genetic Origin and of the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Genetics at the Istituto Auxologico Italiano, IRCCS, Milan, Italy. From 1995 to 2013, he was Professor and Chairman of Cardiology at the University of Pavia, Italy. His major areas of interest and expertise are the relationship between the autonomic nervous system and life-threatening arrhythmias, the long QT syndrome (LQTS), and risk stratification for sudden death. He received numerous prestigious awards, including named lectures. Since September 2020, Prof. Schwartz is the Associate Editor for Genetics of the European Heart Journal. Since January 2023, he is the Associate Editor for Sudden Cardiac Death and Risk Stratification of Europace. He is the author of about 1600 publications

See ESC Gold Medalists from previous years