Speaker: Dr Johan Verjans, SAHMRI Heart Health and Senior Lecturer, The University of Adelaide
Title: Molecular imaging in artherosclerosis
Chair: Dr Thanh Ha Nguyen, Postdoctoral Fellow, Cardiology Unit, The University of Adelaide and BHI, TQEH.
Speaker biography: Johan Verjans is a Dutch cardiologist who has joined the group of Steve Nicholls at the Heart Health theme at SAHMRI (view profile), combined with a senior lecturer position at the University of Adelaide (Researcher Profile). He combines clinical work and research, working as a Cardiology Imaging Fellow at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
His research career has predominantly focused on translational pre-clinical and clinical imaging research using advanced intravascular and non-invasive molecular imaging strategies to detect, track and predict disease at an early stage. Johan finished an MD-PhD program at Maastricht University, spending most of his PhD time as a DiPalma Research Fellow in Philadelphia (Drexel University), and moving to University of California Irvine (Beckman Laser Institute) with Prof. Narula, writing his PhD thesis “Molecular Imaging of Acute and Healing Myocardial Infarction”.
After his PhD, he started his cardiology training at the University Medical Center Utrecht, combining research and clinical training with a subspecialty year in Imaging at University Medical Center Utrecht. During his training, he received a Rubicon award enabling him to do a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University/Massachusetts General Hospital, collaborating with the Wellman center for Photomedicine to test a novel hybrid optical coherence tomography (OCT) and fluorescence catheter for the first time in coronary arteries and carotids. He will continue this work here at SAHMRI as an Associate Investigator of the Center for Nanoscale BioPhotonics.
He received several awards and his past activities include roles a chairman of the Dutch Medical Student Association, Dutch Commission on Continuing Medical Education, Chairman of Young@Heart (Early and mid-career cardiovascular scientists representing the University Medical Centers) and he was co-founder of the Heart Attack Prevention Program for You (HAPPY), which led to the projects like HAPPY London and Happy India.
He was assistant-editor of a JACC Supplement (focusing on the Vulnerable plaque), besides being author of several book chapters and articles. Currently he is reviewer for 10+ journals, and he is Associate editor of the Netherlands Heart Journal.
Johan is more than happy to discuss and collaborate on imaging and machine learning projects in a multidisciplinary setting (small/large animals, clinical research).
Please feel free to contact him at [email protected]
