Research

I am a researcher in cardiovascular medicine at the Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, with a particular focus on heart failure and cardiometabolic disease.

My research aims to improve the understanding, prediction and prevention of cardiovascular disease by combining detailed clinical phenotyping with biomarkers, proteomics and data from large population-based cohorts and clinical studies. A major focus of my work is heart failure, including the identification of biomarkers and biological pathways associated with disease development, prognosis and comorbidities.

Current research interests include:

• heart failure and cardiovascular risk prediction

• cardiovascular biomarkers and proteomics

• selenium and selenoprotein biology in cardiovascular disease

• cardiac structure and function, including echocardiographic phenotyping

• cardiometabolic disease, obesity and diabetes

• the interaction between heart failure, kidney dysfunction and cognitive impairment

• population-based cardiovascular epidemiology and precision phenotyping

I am involved in several clinical and population-based research programmes, including HARVEST (Prediction, Prevention and Treatment of Progressing Heart Failure and Coincident Cognitive Impairment), KHD (Competence Centre Heart and Diabetes), ESCAPER, and The Selenium Intervention Registry Randomized Trial in Heart Failure (SIRI-HF).

An important part of my current work concerns selenium and selenoprotein P in cardiovascular disease and heart failure, ranging from observational biomarker studies to translational and clinical research.

Academic background

I received my PhD from Lund University in 2015 with the thesis The endocrine heart – metabolic actions of atrial natriuretic peptide, supervised by Professor Martin Magnusson and Professor Olle Melander.

Since 2016, I have worked as a postdoctoral researcher in cardiovascular research at Lund University and within the HeArt and Brain Failure InVESTigation research group.

Doctoral supervision

I am currently co-supervisor of several PhD students whose projects span heart failure, cardiovascular biomarkers and proteomics, cardiac phenotyping, cardiometabolic disease and cognitive function.

Current PhD students:

• Amir Zaghi

• Zainu Nezami

• Haris Zilic

• Alexander Yaghoubi

• Daniel Towie

I was previously co-supervisor of Anna Dieden, PhD.

International collaborations

My research is conducted in collaboration with several international research groups, including collaborators at:

• Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany

• Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France

• University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

• Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

• North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

These collaborations include research on selenium and selenoproteins, heart failure biomarkers, cardiovascular and metabolic phenotyping, echocardiography and cardiometabolic disease.

Publications and researcher identifier

My research has been published in international journals in cardiovascular medicine, heart failure, diabetes and endocrinology.

ORCID: 0000-0002-9506-0158