We are delighted to welcome three new members to the BJC editorial board. We will be collaborating with them on a new series of articles for the journal covering immunology and the heart, lipid medicine, and obstetric cardiology.
Professor Federica Marelli-Berg is the British Heart Foundation Chair of Cardiovascular Immunology, and Director of Research and Centre Lead of Biochemical Pathology at the William Harvey Research Institute, Barts and the London Faculty of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London. She qualified in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Milan, Italy, and went on to specialise in haematology at the University of Pavia, Italy. She then completed her PhD studies at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London.
The main focus of her research is the regulation of memory and regulatory T lymphocyte trafficking in the cardiovascular system. Her major contributions have been in the field of antigen-dependent recruitment, and discovering a pathway that allows selective T cell migration to the heart. Her long-term plan is that her research will provide translational bridges between T cell homing mechanisms and the therapy of immune-mediated cardiovascular diseases.
Dr Jorge Plutzky is Director of the Vascular Disease Prevention Programme, and Director of Preventive Cardiology, at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Boston, USA, and also Associate Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA.
He received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, USA, and went on to complete a residency in internal medicine, as well as a fellowship in cardiology at BWH. His clinical interests include cardiovascular disease, preventive education on cardiac disorders, and the impact of diabetes and bariatric conditions on cardiovascular health. His research interests include metabolic pathways, lipid metabolism, arteriosclerosis, thrombosis and vascular biology.
We also welcome Mrs Maggie Simpson, a Cardiology Advanced Nurse Practitioner in heart failure for the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and medical student at the University of Edinburgh. She has 14 years’ experience in cardiology with a specialist interest in adult congenital heart disease, heart failure and cardiac obstetrics.
She is a member of the European Society of Cardiology Heart Failure Association, and the Society’s Association of CV Nurses and Allied Professions (ACNAP), where she chairs the ACNAP education committee. She has been elected a Councillor for the British Society for Heart Failure; Chair of the British Adult Congenital Cardiac Nurse Association; Chair of the Scottish Heart Failure Nurse Forum; and is a Committee Member and Regional Lead North for the British Undergraduate Cardiovascular Association.
