José Luis Zamorano is Professor of Medicine at the University Complutense in Madrid and Director of the Cardiovascular Institute at the University Clinic San Carlos, Madrid. His key research interests include ischaemic heart disease, cardiovascular risk factors and imaging modalities. He serves on numerous Editorial Boards, including the European Journal of Echocardiography, the American Society of Echocardiography and the European Heart Journal. He has authored over 200 articles for peer-reviewed journals. Professor Bax is Director of Non-invasive Imaging and Director of the Echo Laboratory in the Department of Cardiology at Leiden University Medical Centre, The Netherlands. He is also Past-President of the European Society of Cardiology. Professor Knuuti is Director of Cardiology at University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland. Professor Knuuti's main research field is noninvasive imaging especially using PET, SPECT, echocardiography, MRI and CT. The main research focus has been on cardiovascular diseases especially coronary artery disease and heart failure. In these conditions, the focus has been in understanding the physiology and pathophysiology of these diseases as well in developing new tests for diagnosis and therapy guidance. He has 823 publications, of which 553 are original articles and reviews. Professor Patrizio Lancellotti is Head of the Intensive Care Cardiology unit at the University of Liège Hospital Center and Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Liège. His research has led to significant progress in the care of patients suffering from functional mitral insufficiency. Professor Pinto received MD and PhD from Lisbon School of Medicine, University of Lisbon, Portugal and completed fellowships at Santa Maria University Hospital (Lisbon, Portugal), and Stanford University Medical School (CA, USA), where he was Clinical Attending in the Echo lab. He is Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, Professor of Cardiology and Head of the Cardiovascular Department. He was President and founder of the European Association of Echocardiography (2003-2004) and President of the ESC (2014-2016). He is President Elect of WHF, FESC, FACC, FASA, FSCAI, FASE and Honorary Member of several international societies. He was Editor in Chief of the Portuguese Journal of Cardiology (1999-2015), and Member of the Editorial Board of several international journals. He published over 600 indexed articles and has presented over 1500 lectures/chairmanships at national and international meetings. His main areas of interest are cardiovascular imaging among others. Bogdan A. Popescu is Professor of Cardiology at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila" in Bucharest, Romania. He is head of the Third Cardiology Department and director of the echocardiography laboratory at the Institute of Cardiovascular Disease "Prof. C. C. Iliescu" in Bucharest. He published more than 180 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and more than 25 book chapters and books in cardiology and cardiac imaging. His main fields of research interest are on myocardial function/heart failure, valvular heart disease and cardiomyopathies. Professor Sechtem is the Project Coordinator for Research, Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus Stuttgart and also the Associate Professor of Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Tübingen
