International Faculty

Below are the International Faculty for 2026.

Dr. Anita Asgar

Dr Anita Asgar

Dr Anita Asgar is an Interventional Cardiologist working at the Montreal Heart Institute since 2009. Originally from Newfoundland, Dr. Asgar completed her medical school and Internal Medicine Residency at Memorial University (1995-2002), and Cardiology training at Dalhousie University. She then completed a two-year fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at the Institut de Cardiologie de Montreal, followed by a fellowship in Structural and Congenital Intervention at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, England as well as a fellowship in Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging. She has a master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from the Universite de Montreal with a focus in cost-effectiveness of medical technology.

Dr. Anita Asgar has been a full-time staff Interventional Cardiologist at the Montreal Heart Institute, and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Universite de Montreal. She specializes in transcatheter valve interventions, congenital interventions and cardiac MRI. Dr. Asgar was Co-Chair of the Canadian TAVR Guidelines and chaired the Working Group for Transcatheter Valve Therapy Quality Indicators in Canada. She is currently Co-Chair of the Canadian Clinical Position Update on Mitral and Tricuspid valve interventions and is the Editor of two E-books on mitral and tricuspid Transcatheter Edge to Edge Repair for SCAI. She is currently the Medical Director of the Structural Heart Program at the Montreal Heart Institute since 2022 but will be leaving to join Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, Illinois as Section Chief of Interventional Cardiology and System Medical Director of Structural Interventions in January 2025. Her research interests include the treatment and management of valvular heart disease and innovation in structural heart interventions.

Prof. Eberhard Grube

Professor Eberhard Grube is Professor of Medicine, Head, Center of Innovative Interventions in Cardiology (CIIC) University Hospital Bonn, Germany and Consulting Professor, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, at Stanford University School of Medicine and Consulting Professor of the INCOR Heart Institute of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Professor Grube received his first degree in Medicine at the Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelm-University in Bonn. His cardiology training was completed at University of Wisconsin, Medical School and University of Bonn, Medical School. Prof Grube received his Board Certification in Internal Medicine, in Cardiology and in Angiology from the North Rhine Chamber of Medical Doctors and his post-doctoral lecturing qualification “Internal Medicine” from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelm-University in Bonn.

Prof Grube is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American College of Angiology and the Society for Cardiac Angiography & Interventions. His research interests include drug eluting stents, distal protection devices, debulking devices, restenosis and in-stent restenosis as well as structural heart disease in particular transcatheter therapy of aortic and mitral diseases.

Prof. Daniel Blackman

Professor Daniel Blackman, Consultant Cardiologist (Leeds, UK)

Professor Dan Blackman MBChB MD MRCP is Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Professor of Interventional Cardiology at the University of Leeds, and Chairman of the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society Structural Heart Group.

Professor Blackman founded the Leeds transcatheter valve intervention programme, the largest in the UK, in 2008 He has performed over 3000 TAVI procedures, has proctored TAVI worldwide, and is also active in the field of trans-catheter mitral and tricuspid valve intervention.

Professor Blackman is a committed innovator and clinical researcher in interventional cardiology. He is currently Chief Investigator of the multi-centre multi-national REVALVE study and UK PI of the NAVIGATE Bicuspid RCT. He has published over 180 peer-reviewed articles in the field.

Having been Honorary Secretary of the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society from 2016 to 2020, he is now Chair of the BCIS Structural Group.

Prof. Saibal Kar

Professor Saibal Kar, MD, FACC, FSCAI, is a board-certified interventional cardiologist in Thousand Oaks, CA. He serves as the Director of Structural Heart Disease Interventions and Clinical Research at Los Robles Health System. An astute clinician and teacher with a special expertise in interventions for structural heart disease, he is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. In his present position he directs important clinical trials involving structural heart disease interventions in the hospital, and at a national level.

Dr. Kar focuses his research on coronary restenosis, device development, and the advancement of percutaneous techniques in the treatment of structural heart disease. He is recognized internationally for his research and clinical experience in transcatheter mitral valve repair, as well as transcatheter treatment options for prevention of cardioembolic stroke. In the preclinical lab, he has helped develop novel drug-eluting stents that are currently being used in clinical practice.

Dr. Kar’s work has been published in more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and textbooks. He has delivered more than 200 lectures in national and international conferences all around the globe. He serves as a reviewer for a number of preeminent cardiology journals and is on the editorial board of several journals as well. He is a fellow and active member of the American College of Cardiology, Society of Coronary Angiography and Intervention, and the Cardiac Society of India.

Dr. Kar is gifted operator and teacher and mentor for several cardiologists all around the World. He has taught physicians all around the World to perform transcatheter mitral valve repair, left atrial appendage occlusion and several other structural heart disease procedures. Dr. Kar earned his medical degree from Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College in Kolkata, India. Following his internship, he completed his residency in medicine and his fellowship in cardiology at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India.

He was also an interventional cardiology fellow at the Epworth Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. In the United States, Dr. Kar repeated his residency in medicine at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Hospital and completed his cardiology and interventional cardiology fellowship at Cedars-Sinai.

Prof. Patrick W. Serruys

For twenty years he was the chief of department of interventional cardiology at the Thoraxcenter/ Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Promotor of 105 PhD theses.

Professor Patrick W. Serruys is currently established Professor of Medical Intervention & Innovation at University of Galway, Ireland. Doctor honoris causa in engineering from the University of Melbourne. Recipient of multiple awards in recognition of his contribution to cardiovascular medicine, including the James B. Herrick Award by the American Heart Association (2006), a Lifetime Achievement Award conferred in 2011 by the American College of Cardiology and a Gold Medal Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Science and Practice of cardiology from the European Society of Cardiology.

He has published in the leading medical and cardiovascular journals (>3500 manuscripts, 232.017 citations, H-index 233). Founder and past editor in chief of EuroIntervention, the official Journal of EuroPCR congress. Current or past member of editorial boards of >30 international scientific journals. Co-Editor of the ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine (1, 2, 3, and 4th edition).

Dr. John Webb

Dr. John Webb is the Professor of heart valve innovation at the University of British Columbia and Director of Interventional Cardiology at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. He led the group that developed and performed many first-in-human transcatheter aortic, mitral, tricuspid and pulmonary valve procedures. He has traveled to over 50 countries and has over 850 peer-reviewed journal publications and books. Canadian awards include an Honorary Doctor of Science from SFU, Margolese National Heart Disorder Prize and Killam Research Prize from UBC, Career Achievement Award from CCS, and Outstanding Achievement Award from CAIC. International awards include the Ethica Gruntzig Award from EuroPCR, Founder’s Award from SCAI, Hartzler Master Operator Award from TCT, and the Hugenholtz Innovation Medal from the ESC.

Dr. Ravinder Singh Rao

Ravinder Singh Rao MD,DM,FACC
Chairman RHL Heart Center
Visiting Cardiologist, Lilavati Hospital Mumbai

Interventional Cardiologist and Structural heart disease Specialist.
Course Director, India Valves
Interventional Cardiology Fellowship,
Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, USA
Structural Heart Disease Fellowship,
Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, USA.
RHL Heart Center, Rajasthan Hospital, Jaipur, India

Dr. Rahul P. Sharma

Dr Rahul P. Sharma

Dr Rahul Sharma
MBBS, FRACP
Professor of Medicine, Stanford University
Director of Structural Interventions, Stanford Health Care
Associate Director of Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, Stanford Health Care

Dr Rahul P. Sharma, is the Director of Structural Interventions and Associate Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Stanford Healthcare and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. He has specialized clinical and research interests in transcatheter valve therapy and the application of artificial intelligence to healthcare. He is a clinical investigator in ongoing national multi-center clinical trials, has co-authored numerous peer reviewed publications and serves on numerous scientific committees.

Dr. Rajaram Anantharaman

Graduated from Stanley Medical College in 1995 : MBBS
Postgraduate training in UK since 1996, completed MRCP(UK) in 1998,
Registrar in Cardiology 1999 to 2002
Cardiology Research (MD) in anti platelet resistance and PCI outcomes between Blackpool and University of Liverpool (2002 to 2004)
Completed Higher training programme in Cardiology in All Wales Training programme, UK (Cardiff 2004 to 2010): CCST Cardiology (UK)
Fellowship in Interventional Cardiology Swansea/Cardiff UK 2007 to 2009 including Trans-catheter Aortic valve implantation (TAVI)
Consultant Interventional Cardiologist (University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff and Newport) 2010 to 2015
Senior Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, Frontier Lifeline Hospital, Dr K M Cherian Heart Foundation, Chennai, Jan 2015 to 2020
Director of Transcatheter Heart Valve Therapies and Senior Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, Kauvery Hospital Alwarpet Chennai

Advanced Heart Failure and Heart Transplant

India’s 1st MCS bridge (VA ECMO + IABP) to Re-do Heart Transplant in Sep 2017 as Lead Cardiologist (FLL Team)
India’s 1st MCS bridge (Impella+ IABP+VA ECMO) to Adult Heart Transplant for CS in 2022 as Lead Cardiologist (Kauvery Team)
India’s first Mitraclip / Carillion device bridge to Heart Transplant in 2016 (FLL Team)

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Launched the first Cardiac Risk in Young C R Y clinic in India in 2015

THV (Trans-catheter Heart Valve ) Therapy

India’s 1st case of Valve in Valve TAVI in 2015
First case of Trans-catheter Pulmonary Valve Implantation in South India in2019
India’s 1st Trans-Caval TAVR+ TEVAR+ PCI 2020 (Heart Team India)
India’s 1st BASILICA assisted TAVR 2021 (Heart Team India)
India’s 1st TAVR with Micra TPS 2022
India’s 1st Double Valve in valve (Aortic/Mitral) THV with Micra TPS 2022
India’s 1st Tip to Base LAMPOON + IABP assisted ViV TMVR 2023
India’s 1st Python XL BD multi-wire port sheath assisted TAVR 2024
FIM Proof of concept: Transcatheter Transvenous Trans-septal Mitral Valve in MAC with Extended external wrap and Atrialized implant
India’s first Laser assisted Primary angioplasty
India’s first Intracardiac Echo (ICE) guided LAAO

Dr. Rishi Puri

Dr Rishi Puri

Rishi Puri, MD, PhD, FRACP, is a coronary and structural interventional cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic. He is also an Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the Angiography and IVUS Core Laboratory. He completed his clinical and academic training in Adelaide (Sth Australia), Cleveland (USA), Quebec City (Canada), Rennes (France), and Zurich (Switzerland).

Rishi has published over 420 original manuscripts in high-impact journals across a broad topic base including transcatheter structural heart interventions for valvular heart disease and heart failure, atherosclerosis progression-regression and plaque imaging, and coronary physiology/pharmacology. He is actively involved in developing novel device-based technologies in the coronary, structural heart disease and interventional heart failure spaces, has co-founded and advises a range of medical start-up companies and larger strategics.

He currently serves as global co-PI for the TRICAV-1 and TRICAV-2 FDA pivotal trial testing a bi-caval stenting system for patients with severe TR, the ADVANCE-DCB FIM trial of a dual API nanoparticle drug-eluting balloon in de novo coronary lesions, and is on the global steering committees of a range of pivotal trials in the aortic and mitral valve therapy space. Rishi is an Australian native, and enjoys his spare time traveling, road cycling, trail running and XC skiing.

Dr. Sam Dawkins

Dr Sam Dawkins

Sam Dawkins is an Interventional Cardiologist and Clinical Lead for Structural Intervention at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and Cleveland Clinic London. He trained in London and Oxford, completing a DPhil at the University of Oxford, followed by fellowships in Structural Intervention and Critical Care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles.

His expertise spans aortic, mitral, and tricuspid valve intervention, as well as patent foramen ovale closure and left atrial appendage occlusion. He led the development of the UK’s largest transcatheter mitral and tricuspid programme at the John Radcliffe Hospital and has been responsible for introducing multiple first-in-UK technologies, including the Pascal and TriClip transcatheter edge-to-edge repair systems and the Evoque tricuspid valve replacement platform.

Dr Dawkins is actively involved in teaching and proctoring structural interventions worldwide, training new centres and operators across Europe, Asia, and the United States. He is a regular faculty member and invited lecturer at many major international meetings.

Prof Mohamed Abdel-Wahab

Professor Mohamed Abdel-Wahab

Professor Mohamed Abdel-Wahab is currently holding the position of Senior Consultant Cardiologist and Head of the Structural Heart Disease Department at the Leipzig Heart Center, and is a Professor of Interventional Cardiology at the University of Leipzig – Germany. The Leipzig Heart Center is one of the largest centers for cardiovascular disease management in Europe. He is leading clinical and research programs in the field of transcatheter valve replacement and complex coronary interventions.

Before he moved to Leipzig, Abdel-Wahab was leading the coronary and structural heart disease program at the Heart Center of the Segeberger Kliniken in Bad Segeberg – Germany. He was presented the 2013 Publication Award of the Working Group on Interventional Cardiology of the German Society of Cardiology and the 2015 Andreas Grüntzig Award of the German Society of Cardiology.

Professor Abdel-Wahab was a nucleus member of the Working Group on Interventional Cardiology of the German Society of Cardiology, and is a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology, a member of several international academic boards, and has published more than 250 papers in the field of interventional cardiology in peer review journals.

Dr. A B Gopalamurugan

Dr A B Gopalamurugan

Dr A B Gopalamurugan is well renowned internationally as a pioneering interventional cardiologist and electrophysiologist who was a London based consultant cardiologist for some years before moving to India to set up Transcatheter Valve services in India in 2015.

He started India’s first TAVR with the Evolut R valve platform in 2015 making that patient the longest living TAVR patient ever in India to date. He started India’s first Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement (TMVR) programme in 2016 making that patient the longest living TMVR patient in India to date. He went on to start India’s first Transcatheter Tricuspid Valve Replacement (TTVR) programme in 2016 and subsequently started 14 of India’s first Transcatheter heart valve treatments including India’s first Transcaval TAVR, India’s Basilica, India’s first Lampoon, India’s first Sesame, India’s first TMVR in MAC program and several others.

He has contributed to three of the world’s first TAVR procedures including the first-in-man successful

Transeptal TMVR (published in JACC) and he holds a Guinness world record in the field of TAVR. He is the founder and course director of India’s national Transcatheter Valve course/conference namely “India Valves” which is the largest attended Transcatheter valve event of the country. It is conducted in the first weekend of September every year. He currently works between Chennai, Mumbai and London where his private offices are based.

Dr. Michael J. Reardon

Dr Michael J. Reardon

Michael J. Reardon, M.D.

Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery
Allison Family Distinguished Chair of Cardiovascular Research
Houston Methodist Hospital

Dr. Michael Reardon was born in Houston Texas in 1953. He married his wife, Robin, in 1975 and they have two daughters and four grandchildren. He attended Baylor College of Medicine, did his general surgery residency under Dr. Michael DeBakey at Baylor and cardiothoracic residency under Dr. Denton Cooley and the Texas Heart Institute. He joined the staff of the Hoston Methodist Hospital in 1985 and has spent his entire career there. He has served in most staff positions including the elected president of the medical staff.

He was the first chief of the division of cardiothoracic surgery at Baylor after the retirement of Dr. DeBakey and the first chief of cardiac surgery at the Houston Methodist Hospital. He has over 1,000 publications including peer reviewed, published abstracts and invited publications. He has given over 1,000 national and internationally invited presentations. He has been invited as a visiting professor and operating surgeon on five continents. He has served as the national surgical principal investigator on 11 trials and as national study chair on 4 more. He maintains an active clinical practice as well as a research program. His clinical and research interests include structural heart disease, aortic surgery, transcatheter procedures and cardiac tumors.

Dr. Simon LAM

Dr Simon LAM

Dr. Lam graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong in 2003. He is an interventional cardiologist from the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong. He received his post-fellowship training in Structural and Congenital Heart Intervention in Cardiovascular Center Frankfurt, Germany under Prof. Horst Sievert in 2012-2013.

Research focuses on Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI), percutaneous mitral and tricuspid valve repair, Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement (TMVR), Transcatheter Tricuspid Valve Replacement (TTVR), transcatheter electrosurgery, complex percutaneous cornary interventions, intracoronary imaging, and adult congenital heart disease. Recent experience includes transfemoral implantation of the J-Valve for pure aortic regurgitation and LuX-Valve Plus tricuspid valve replacement, as well as participation in experimental testing of innovative development and training platforms for transcatheter electrosurgery and cardiac valve interventions. Serves as the course director for Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) at Queen Mary Hospital and chair of the Annual Hong Kong Heart Valve Conference.

Dr. Anson CHEUNG

Cardiovascular Surgeon
Surgical Director, Cardiac Transplantation
Clinical Professor of Surgery – University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia

Dr. Anson Cheung is the Director of Cardiac Transplantation of B.C. and Clinical Professor of Surgery with the University of British Columbia, Department of Surgery, Division of Cardiovascular Surgery. Practicing since 2000, he is currently on staff at St. Paul’s Hospital and Vancouver General Hospital. He is a graduate of the University of Manitoba with post-graduate work at Stanford University, University of Western Ontario and the University of Pittsburgh. He joined the academic staff at UBC in 2001 and St. Paul’s Hospital in 2000. His specialties include cardiac transplant surgery, mechanical circulatory assist devices, transcatheter valve therapy and off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (OPCABG). Dr. Cheung has established the VAD (Ventricular Assist Device) Program at St. Paul’s Hospital which is the first VAD program in Western Canada. He is also a leader in transcatheter valve therapy. He is currently involved in numerous research projects along with other works in progress. He was also the recipient of the Department of Surgery Concept Awards in 2003 as well as the International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery President’s Award in 2010 and 2015. He continues to foster cardiac surgical education by participating in numerous symposiums and post-graduate courses worldwide.

Prof. Bernard Prendergast

Bernard Prendergast, DM, FRCP, FESC | Department Chair of Cardiology

Professor Bernard Prendergast is the Chair of Cardiology at Cleveland Clinic London and a Consultant Cardiologist at Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. He has been Honorary Secretary of the British Cardiovascular and Cardiovascular Intervention Societies and maintains research interests that focus on the field of heart valve disease and have resulted in publication of over 400 articles.

He is a frequent lecturer on the international stage and is the Co-Chairman of PCR (the world’s largest education programme in. interventional cardiology) and the principal Course Director of PCR London Valves (the world’s largest specialist meeting in valve intervention).

Dr. Phillip Freeman

Dr Phillip Freeman | Consultant Interventional Cardiology (Karolinska, Stockholm)

Dr Freeman has been a consultant in structural intervention at Karolinska Hospital, Sweden since Sept. 2025, specialising in TAVI, Mitral (TMVR, MTEER), Tricuspid (TTVR, TTEER), electrosurgery (LAMPOON, BASILICA, UNICORN) and SESAME percutaneous myotomy.

From 2017, Dr Freeman led the structural program at Aalborg University Hospital, Denmark, evolving the service from a basic low volume TAVI centre to the leading electrosurgical centre in Europe.

Aalborg was the first centre in Scandinavia to perform LAMPOON ViMAC and ViR procedures, with Dr Freeman performing the region’s first case, and is the first centre internationally outside the USA to develop SESAME percutaneous myotomy. These therapies are now established into a mature service with a heavy focus on selection and good results. But with a different home now, Karolinska, Stockholm

Dr Freeman is a core member of the international electrosurgery group and an active proctor for TAVI, complex electrosurgery, and paravalvular leak closure.

Dr. Gilbert Tang

Gilbert H. L. Tang, MD, MSc, MBA, FRCSC, FACC, FSCAI

Vice Chair of Innovation, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Mount Sinai Health System

Surgical and Academic Director, Structural Heart Program, Mount Sinai Health System

Director, Mitral and Tricuspid Structural Interventions, Mount Sinai Health System

Director, Structural Heart Program Education, Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital

Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and Cardiovascular Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

@GIlbertTangMD

As an interventional surgeon, Dr. Tang has performed >4000 structural heart interventions (including >600 mitral and tricuspid procedures) and is a world expert in the lifetime management after TAVR (redo TAVR and TAVR explant), transcatheter mitral and tricuspid interventions, and 3D intracardiac echo. Dr. Tang has pioneered several techniques in TAVR (cusp overlap, commissural alignment) that have become the standard practice. He serves on committees in the Heart Valve Collaboratory, PCR, and several clinical trials, and is the Principal Investigator in the global EXPLANT-TAVR, EXPLANTORREDO-TAVR, and CUTTING-EDGE registries. Dr. Tang is the Editor-in-Chief for JACC Case Reports, a 4-time recipient of the Simon Dack Award for JACC, a FRCSC, FACC and the first surgeon to be a FSCAI, as well as a member of the AATS, STS and AHA. He has published >200 articles, lectured and trained many heart teams around the world, owns a YouTube channel and has >19,000 followers on Twitter/X and Linkedin. Dr. Tang obtained his BA from Harvard University and MD from University of Toronto. Dr. Tang completed his cardiac surgery residency training at the University of Toronto and also a Masters of Science there and an MBA at Harvard. During his spare time he enjoys spending it with his lovely wife Lydia and his 2 boys: Alexander, aged 7 and Julian, aged 4.