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Event BSC congress 2027 starts on 28 Jan 2027, 09:00:00 (Europe/Brussels)
S30 - BWGBRC: Emerging mechanisms in HFpEF: insights from Belgian research
Location: Room Foyer - 29/01/2027, 15:15 - 29/01/2027, 16:30 (Europe/Brussels) (1 hour 15 minutes)
Moderators
Sandrine Horman  - UCLouvain
Llewelyn Roderick - KU Leuven (TBC)


15:15 - 15:25, Introduction: HFpEF pathophysiology - current concepts and unmet needs

Prof. dr. Gevaert is a cardiologist at Antwerp University Hospital and an assistant professor at the University of Antwerp’s GENCOR department. His expertise lies in heart failure, cardiac imaging and exercise physiology. He earned his M.D. in 2011 and Ph.D. in 2019 both from the University of Antwerp and later specialized further during a fellowship at the University Medical Centre Groningen. Currently he is involved in the heart failure, LVAD and heart ransplant programs at UZA’s Heart Failure clinic as well as the stress/exercise echocardiography lab. He has authored over 70 PubMed-cited articles with a research focus on exercise physiology in heart failure, including HFpEF, effects of exercise training, and device therapy in HF.




15:25 - 15:35, SGLT-dependent mechanisms in HFpEF: beyond SGLT2
Biography



15:35 - 15:45, Endothelial dysfunction and microvascular remodelling in HFpEF
Dr. Elizabeth Jones’ expertise lies in the study of vascular remodelling. She began her career as an engineer studying embryonic blood fluid dynamics, leading to an interest in mechanotransduction and vascular adaptation to flow. Though she started in physiological remodelling, she now also investigates why pathological remodelling is activated in the presence of metabolic comorbidities, and how this can lead to the development of diastolic dysfunction and to HFpEF. The overall goal of her research is to understand activation of normal remodelling by changing flow conditions, and how this process goes wrong in disease conditions.





15:45 - 15:55, Right ventricular-pulmonary artery uncoupling in HFpEF
Laurence Dewachter, PharmD, PhD, is Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium. Her research focuses on pulmonary vascular diseases, right ventricular failure and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), with particular interest in multi-organ interactions. She leads a multidisciplinary research team combining experimental and translational approaches, in close collaboration with the Heart Failure and Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic of the HUB–Hôpital Erasme. Her work bridges basic and clinical research to elucidate the mechanisms of cardiovascular disease and identify new therapeutic targets and strategies for pulmonary hypertension, right heart failure and HFpEF.