A very successful Female Heart Workshop 2025
The 2025 Female Heart Workshop was held at Solstrand Hotel on May 8-9 in fantastic spring weather. An inspiring workshop gathering 43 researchers from all over Norway and abroad to focus on new knowledge about sex and gender impact on cardiovascular disease
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This year's program focused on gender differences in heart valve disease, high blood pressure, obesity and how multiomics can help to better understand these gender differences.
Professor Patricia Pellikka from the Mayo Clinic, who is also the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Echocardiography in the United States, started the workshop with a state-of-the-art lecture on gender differences in aortic valve stenosis. Associate Professor Dana Cramariuc presented her groundbreaking research on left atrial function and mitral valve leakage. Yet another type of heart disease that mainly affects women. Hypertension is a particularly important risk factor also for this type of cardiac disease in women.
Professor Tom Guzik gave a lecture on Zoom on gender differences in the interaction between inflammation and hypertension. From the Centre, postdoctoral fellow Ester Kringeland presented her own hypertension research based on data from the Hordaland Health Study, and Associate Professor Liv Kvalvik presented data from her research on how pregnancy complications contribute to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease later in life in these women.
Obesity is becoming increasingly common and is emerging as one of the most important risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Endocrinologist and researcher Claudia Coelho updated us on important gender differences in complications of obesity and the effect of new treatment methods. Professor Simon Dankel contributed mechanistic explanations related to metabolic and epigenetic regulation of adipose tissue.
From our collaboration within the COST Action AtheroNET, Professor Susana Novella from the University of Valencia participated with a lecture on sex differences in microRNA related to heart disease, and researcher Brooke Wolford from NTNU presented her results from the HUNT study on the use of polygenic risk scores in the assessment of risk of coronary artery disease.
A fantastic update and great abstract presentations from the junior researchers with good discussion and interaction with leading experts.