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Charité University Medicine Berlin

Charité University Medicine Berlin is one of the largest university hospitals in Europe. The Department of Cardiology at the Charité Campus Virchow-Klinikum provides top-level clinical care, large-scale patient studies in a dedicated clinical research unit and a specific focus on translational small and large animal models of cardiac disease. Recently, Charité has been investing considerable resources at the Campus Virchow-Klinikum to establish a dedicated large animal translational research centre in cooperation with the German Heart Institute Berlin. The close cooperation of professionals from different research areas, including clinicians, biologists, biostatisticians and physicists, provides a full bench to bedside translational approach. The group will contribute to the project success offering to the partners a broad methodological spectrum of techniques to characterize cardiac function in large animal models of cardiovascular disease, including invasive pressure-volume analysis and coronary blood flow studies, echocardiography (with advanced strain and speckle tracking analysis) and cardiac magnetic resonance.
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Charité Partecipants

Alessio Alogna

Alessio Alogna, (Unit PI) Dr., PhD, is a clinician scientist (supported by the Berlin Institute of Health, BIH). He got his medical and scientific training at the University of Pavia (Italy), University College of London (UK), Medical University of Graz (Austria) and Charité University Medicine Berlin (Germany). During his PhD at the Medical University of Graz, he specialized in the in-vivo characterization of cardiac function in large animal models of cardiovascular diseases, applying both invasive and imaging techniques. His scientific curriculum includes also a research stay in the industry, at Bayer Healthcare Research Centre (Wuppertal, Germany). He has won travel grants and awards, including the Rudi-Busse Young Investigator award in experimental cardiology 2015 from the German Cardiac Society.

Heiner Post

Heiner Post, (Unit Co-PI) PD Dr, he is a consultant interventional cardiologist. He has established the experimental hemodynamic research group over the past decade. He got his training at the University Medical Schools of Essen, Goettingen and Graz in Germany and Austria. Dr Post spent two years as a research fellow of the German Research Foundation at the New York Medical College, USA. Next to his clinical work, he has performed large animal studies for more than twenty years. His main fields of interest are myocardial function, endogenous cardioprotection and heart failure. He led an own working group between 2008 and 2014 in Graz, established porcine models of atrial fibrillation and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, and performed several studies on cardiovascular effects of mild hypothermia. He has supervised 9 medical theses and 2 PhD fellows. In 2014, he was hired by Bayer Healthcare (Germany) as a senior scientist to develop translational large animal models. PD Dr. Post has presented numerous abstracts at scientific congresses and has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers.

Alessandro Faragli

Alessandro Faragli, MD is a research fellow at the Department of Cardiology of the Charité Campus Virchow-Klinikum. He has been working for the Experimental Cardiology Lab since 2 years. He received his medical and scientific training at the University of Pavia (Italy). His curriculum includes the development of new medical devices, patents ideation, translation to clinical validation and business cases (https://www.d-heartcare.com/it/; https://boca-health.com/).

Dawud Abawi

Dawud Abawi, MD is a resident physician at the Department of Cardiology of the Charité Campus Virchow-Klinikum. He has been working for the Experimental Cardiology Lab since 3 years. He got his medical and scientific training at the Charité University Medicine Berlin (Germany).

Jens Ötvös, DVM

Dr Jens Ötvös is an experienced veterinarian scientist. He has been performing high-risk anaesthesia in the field of large animals in experimental cardiology for more than 10 years. During this time he supported research groups within several company-related as well as academic projects. He worked with and established cardiovascular disease models for several companies, including Berlin Heart GmbH and Abiomed (former ECP). In the past years, Dr Ötvös has been involved in a project pioneering the use of a novel C-reactive protein apheresis to treat myocardial infarction.