Doctor Hafid Ait-Oufella
Hafid Ait-Oufella is Professor of Cardiology and Intensive Care Medicine at Sorbonne Université and Saint-Antoine Hospital, Paris, France. He is the director of Team 5 “Immuno-metabolic mechanism of cardiovascular diseases” (Inserm U970) at Paris-Cardiovascular Research Center (PARCC).
He has extensive expertise in the immune mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases, especially the role of CD4+ T and B cells. In collaboration with Alain Tedgui and Ziad Mallat, he identified for the first time the protective role of regulatory T cells in atherosclerosis (Nature Medicine 2006) and changed the paradigm regarding the role of B cells as pro-atherogenic immune cells (J Exp Med 2009). He is also interested in studying the crosstalks between innate and adaptive immune responses. During the last 2 decades, he investigated the inflammatory responses involved in atherosclerosis, aortic aneurysm disease and since 2010, he has been studying the immune response in post-myocardial infarction remodeling showing that B cells orchestrate monocyte recruitment into ischemic heart (Nat Med 2013). More recently, he unrevealed a critical role of TREM-1, a myeloid receptor, in the deleterious cardiac remodeling following experimental myocardial infarction (Circ Res 2015), as well as in atherosclerosis (JACC 2016) and aortic aneurysm pathophysiology. All these experimental studies pave the way for novel immune-modulatory therapeutic strategies against cardiovascular diseases that are currently tested in clinical trials.
Professor Konstantinos Stellos
Konstantinos Stellos is a physician scientist who was trained in internal medicine and cardiology at the University Hospitals of Tübingen and Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
He received his doctorate degree with distinction from the University of Tübingen and his habilitation (higher doctorate) from the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. He has worked as Assistant and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Medical School of the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. He currently works as Professor/Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine & Epitranscriptomics and Lead of the Vascular Biology and Medicine Theme of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.
As Hippocrates told many years ago “It is far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has”. Understanding the role of vascular system in human disease is of utmost importance for the development of novel precision medicine therapeutics. Prof. Stellos’ laboratory focuses on the interplay among vascular biology, immunology and RNA surveillance (www.StellosLab.com). His laboratory has identified novel molecular mechanisms involved in atherosclerotic heart disease. Stellos lab is currently developing new strategies to identify and address the residual risk in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Prof. Konstantinos Stellos is elected nucleus board member of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Working Group on Atherosclerosis and Vascular Biology, Vice-Chair of the American Heart Association (AHA) Council on Genomic and Precision Medicine Professional/Public Education & Publications Committee and an elected Fellow of both the ESC and AHA. His research is supported by a European Research Council grant and has been honoured with several national and international awards including the ESC Outstanding Achievement Award 2020.
Our mission: To reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease.