Filippo Crea was born in Cosenza, Italy on 19 September 1953. He graduated from Pisa Medical School with full honours in 1977 and passed the postgraduate Boards in both Pulmonary and Cardiovascular Diseases, again with full honours, at Pisa Medical School in 1980 and 1983 respectively. During the whole of 1984 he was Research Fellow at the Division of Cardiology of the University of Florida, directed by Professor Richard C. Conti. From 1985 to 1991 he was Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant at the Cardiovascular Research Unit of the Hammersmith Hospital in London, directed by Professor Attilio Maseri. He returned to Italy upon his appointment as Chief of the Catheterization Laboratory at the Institute of Cardiology of the Catholic University of Rome. In 2000 he became Associate Professor of Cardiology and Chief of the Intensive and Sub-Intensive Care Unit. In 2001 he became Professor of Cardiology, Director of the Institute of Cardiology, Director of the Postgraduate School in Cardiology and of the PhD program in Clinical Research in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the Catholic University of Rome. From October 2008 to January 2020 he was Director of the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences. From February 2020 to October 2023 he was Director of the University Department of Cardiovascular and Pneumological Sciences. Since November 2023 he is Director of the Centre of Excellence in Cardiovascular Medicine at the Gemelli-Isola Tiberina Hospital. He is Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology, founder and Past Chairman of the Working Group on Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation, Past Member of the Education Committee, Past Member of the ESC Congress Program Committee, co-author of Guidelines on chronic coronary syndromes (2013), NSTEMI (2017), UDMI (2019). Since 2020 he is Editor-in-Chief of the “European Heart Journal” and since 2022 Chairman of ESC Publications Committee. In 1992 he received from Nobel Prize Professor Rita Levi Montalcini the Newburg Prize for his scientific contribution to the cardiovascular research. In 2013 he received the Arrigo Recordati International Prize for lifetime achievement in researching the pivotal role of microcirculation in systemic and organ diseases. In 2015 he delivered the 7th annual Robert L. Krakoff International Lecture in Cardiovascular Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University Medical School. His main field of interest is the study of mechanisms, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of ischemic heart disease. He is the author of more than 1500 publications in peer reviewed journals with an H-Index of 95.

Professor David Brieger is Head of Department of Cardiology at Concord Hospital and Professor of Cardiology, University of Sydney. He has a long standing interest in ACS management and currently co-chairs the writing committee for the update to the CSANZ guidelines for the diagnosis and management of Acute Coronary Syndromes.

Janet Bray is a critical care nurse and a Professor and Heart Foundation Fellow at Monash University. Janet Chairs the Australian and New Zealand out-of-hospital cardiac arrest registry and is the Director of the Aus-ROC NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence.

Louise Cullen is the Director of Research and Innovation and Specialist in the Emergency and Trauma Centre, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, a clinical trialist and outcomes researcher in acute diseases and biomarkers and Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology.

Daniel Chan is a General and Interventional Cardiologist, working at Whangarei Hospital. He is the co-chair of the NZ Heart Failure Working Group and ANZACS-QI representative on the NZ National Cardiac Network.

A/Prof William Wang is a cardiologist at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, and Associate Professor of Medicine at The University of Queensland. His interests are in cardiac imaging, service delivery and Indigenous Health.

Graham Hillis is Head of the Department of Cardiology at Royal Perth Hospital, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Western Australia, Adjunct Professor at Curtin University and Professorial Fellow at the George Institute for Global Health. From 2017 to 2020 he was also Director of Research for WA Health East Metropolitan Health Service. In addition to over 20 years of clinical cardiology experience, he has considerable expertise in the design, conduct and reporting of high quality clinical trials in cardiovascular medicine. He serves on the steering committees of several major national and international trials and on the end-point adjudication and data safety committees of several others. In particular, he is the international co-PI of the The Early valve replacement in severe ASYmptomatic aortic stenosis (EASY AS) trial, co-funded by the MRFF, British Heart Foundation and New Zealand Heart Foundation and CI on many other grants, including from the NHMRC, Heart Foundation and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (totalling >$17 million in the past 5 years). He has over 180 career publications, including many in leading general and speciality journals and has twice been awarded the National Heart Foundation Ross Hohnen Prize for Research Excellence (in 2014 and 2018).

Associate Professor Sarah Zaman is an Interventional Cardiologist at Westmead Hospital and an Academic at the University of Sydney. A/Prof Zaman leads a team of researchers focused on spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), coronary artery disease and health equity. She is a NHMRC Investigator Grant Fellow, a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow, a United States SCAI-ELM Fellow and a Lancet Commissioner on Atherosclerotic Coronary Artery Disease. She serves on multiple guideline writing committees, for example, having written the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) global strategic framework for Acute Coronary Syndromes, and now serving as co-Chair writing the ‘5th Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction’.