Prof. Carlos M. G. Duran, MD, PhD

Dr. Duran is one of the leading cardiac surgeons in the world specializing in heart valve reconstruction and replacement. He is a pioneer in the use of natural tissues for heart valve surgery.

From 1954 to 1958, after medical school at Madrid University, he trained in general and thoracic surgery at Hopitaux de Paris under Professor Dubost. From 1959 to 1967, Dr. Duran studied under Professor Allison at London and Oxford Universities, and completed Ph.D. requirements with research work on the transplantation of heart valves. This research led to the first successful human aortic valve implantation performed in London in 1962 by Mr. Donald R. Ross and the first porcine aortic valve transplantation in Paris in 1965 by Dr. J. P. Binet.

Since 1967, Dr. Duran has had teaching and clinical appointments at several University medical centers. In 1976, he advanced mitral valve reconstruction techniques with the invention of the "Duran Ring." The Duran Ring is a flexible, prosthetic device that is sewn to the supportive framework of a weak and dilated heart valve to provide needed support.

Dr. Duran was the Chairman of the Cardiovascular Department at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia prior to accepting his current positions of President/CEO of The International Heart Institute of Montana Foundation and Chair of Cardiovascular Sciences at The University of Montana.

A member of 31 international medical societies, Dr. Duran also participates on the editorial boards of ten medical journals. His work, particularly in valve surgery, has led to more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, 450 professional papers presented at scientific meetings and 33 chapters in medical texts.

Dr. Duran's wife, Begonia Gometza, is also a physician, and they have seven children who live all over the world.

Carlos E. Ruiz, MD, PhD

Department of Pediatrics,
Division of Pediatric Cardiology
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL 60612

Board Certification: American Board of Internal Medicines
Subspecialty Cardiovascular Disease

Dr. Ruiz is one of the leading interventional cardiologists in structural cardiovascular disease in the world. He learned the first steps in interventional cardiology from one of the pioneers, Dr. Andreas Gruntzig in 1979. Dr. Ruiz was born in Barcelona, Spain. He completed medical school in Barcelona at the age of 21 and his PhD at the Mayo Clinic at the age of 25. He trained in Adult and Pediatric Cardiology at the University of Barcelona. He did additional training at the Mayo Clinic and the University of Southern California. Dr. Ruiz then worked at Loma Linda as the Director of the Adult and Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories until 1998. He pioneered several new interventions, among them the percutaneous double-balloon mitral valvuloplasty. Dr, Ruiz then moved to Chicago. He has been full tenured Professor in Medicine and Pediatrics since 1991, and currently he is the Chief, of Pediatric Cardiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Ruiz has over 150 published articles in peer review journals, over 250 professional papers presented at scientific meetings and 6 book chapters. Furthermore he has 11 US patents on different cardiovascular devices.

Dr. Ruiz' wife, Dr. Esperanza Naves-Ruiz is a neonatologist and they have 3 children.

Professor Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub, FRS, FRCS, FRCP(Hon), DSc(Hon), MCh(Hon), FACC

Magdi Yacoub was born and educated in Cairo where he qualified as a doctor in 1957. After qualification he did a spell as a houseman and then as registrar. In 1962 he came over to England to take up the post of surgical officer, and then surgical registrar at the London Chest Hospital. The following year he became Senior Surgical Registrar at the National Heart Hospital and Brompton Hospital where he worked for the next five years under Lord Brock and Donald Ross. After a year in America as Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Medical School he returned to this country to take up the position of Consultant Cardiac Surgeon at Harefield Hospital, a position which he still holds in addition to being Director of Medical Research and Education. Under his leadership, Harefield Hospital has become Britains' leading transplant centre, performing over 200 heart transplants a year. He was also Consultant Cardiac Surgeon to the National Heart Hospital from 1973 to 1989 and in 1986 was appointed to be the first British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the National Heart & Lung Institute in association with the Royal Brompton Hospital. In 1995, the Institute became a Department of Imperial College School of Medicine.

Following retirement from the NHS in September 2001, Sir Magdi continues to head his research programme as Founder and Director of Research of the Magdi Yacoub Institute (formerly known as Harefield Research Foundation) and British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, in an academic capacity. In addition, at the beginning of 2002, Mr. Alan Milburn, MP appointed Sir Magdi as Special Envoy to the NHS in a National drive to recruit overseas qualified specialists in a new and innovative International Fellowship scheme.

Professor Yacoub is a pioneer in the field of heart and lung transplantation and one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons'. He carried out his first heart transplant operation at Harefield Hospital in 1980. Since then he has carried out hundreds of these operations; the 1,000th transplant at Harefield was undertaken by him in July 1989. Magdi Yacoub has specialised in working with children with congenital heart malformations and has done pioneering work on the "switch" operation. Sir Magdi's other surgical interests include the homograft and pulmonary autograft aortic valve replacement, and the aortic root repair.

Sir Magdi Yacoub has made a remarkable contribution to heart and heart-lung transplantation not only as the surgeon who has performed more transplants than anybody else in the world, but as a scientist interested in the fundamental aspects of organ transplantation. In ten years he has attracted approximately 80-90 colleagues who are closely involved with the clinical work of his department and are investigating physiological and disease processes at molecular and cellular levels. The Department is rapidly becoming one of the leading academic departments of cardiothoracic surgery in the world.

Professor Yacoub is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He holds honorary degrees from Brunel University, Cardiff University, The University of Loughborough, University of Middlesex and also from the University of Lund in Sweden. He holds honorary posts in Lahore, Pakistan and University of Siena, Italy. He has received many awards and distinctions among which the Clement Prize Thomas Award of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1989. In 1999 he was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society and presented with the Lifetime Outstanding Achievement Award in recognition of his contribution to Medicine by the Right Hon. Frank Dobson, MP, Secretary of State for Health. In April 2004 he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement award by the International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation.

Philipp Bonhoeffer, MD, FSCAI

Philipp Bonhoeffer is Professor of Cardiology and Head of the Cardiology department at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for children. He is specialized in interventional cathertisation for patients with congenital and valvar heart disease and has developed a number of techniques and materials over the last 10 years. He has performed the first implantation of a heart valve in a human in 2000. Professor Bonhoeffer has lived and worked in Germany, Italy and France and moved to the UK in 2001. He is involved in medicine in developing countries and has participated in numerous humanitarian projects.

Prof. Philipp Bonhoeffer
Chief of Cardiology
Director of the Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, NHS Trust
Great Ormond Street
London, WC1N 3JH

Tele: 020 7813 8106/8500
Fax: 020 7829 8673