Guilherme Pessoa-Amorim

I am a NIHR Oxford BRC Clinical Research Fellow, based at the Clinical Trials Service Unit (CTSU). Here, I am working under the joint supervision of Professors Barbara Casadei and Louise Bowman in the AMALFI trial, a study which aims to shed light on the burden of subclinical atrial fibrillation in elderly high-risk patients. I am also part of the clinical team for the ORION-4 trial, a study which is assessing the effect of inclisiran, a novel cholesterol-lowering therapy, on cardiovascular events on patients with established atherosclerotic disease.

Apart from my work on large-scale clinical trials, I am also working at the Oxford Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research (OCMR), where I am contributing to research projects on left atrial function and haemodynamics using advanced cardiovascular magnetic resonance techniques, such as 4D flow. My research interests include atrial fibrillation, heart failure and cardiovascular imaging, as well as both randomized controlled trials and big data approaches to study cardiovascular disease.

BACKGROUND

I studied Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, in Portugal, having graduated in 2017. My MD, developed under the supervision of Professor Ricardo Fontes-Carvalho, studied the role of myocardial deformation analysis with echocardiography for early prediction of post-operative atrial fibrillation. This project was awarded the Sanofi Prize 2017 for best research paper in clinical cardiology conducted in Portugal, and a Best Poster award at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2017.

After that, I completed a one-year clinical internship at Gaia-Espinho Hospital Centre, a tertiary hospital in Northern Portugal, where I gained experience in internal medicine, clinical cardiology and primary care, having worked in inpatient wards, emergency room and outpatient clinic. This intense and rewarding year of clinical work, together with the exciting research experience I had as a medical student, made me want to pursue a career as a clinician-scientist in Cardiology, placing myself at the crossroads between medical research and clinical practice.