About the Author:

Dr Petros Nihoyannopoulos is Reader in Cardiology, at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College School of Medicine and Technology (University of London) and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist Hammersmith Hospital, UK. He is a fully trained clinical cardiologist having completed medical studies in Strasbourg-France in 1979. He is now Head of Echocardiography laboratories at Hammersmith Hospital. Dr Nihoyannopoulos has developed the Hammersmith Echocardiology laboratory to the highest international standards to accommodate the ever increasing clinical demand but also to the highest national teaching center for echocardiology. He organizes both a clinical echocardiography service department with comprehensive technical support and a research unit which annually trains 5-6 post-graduate students from all over the world. At present, he has trained over 50 doctors and technicians from all over Europe in the art of echocardiology. His main research interest is in the use of echocardiography and Doppler techniques in clinical practice. To this end he leads the echocardiography laboratory at the Hammersmith Hospital in the following specific areas: stress echocardiography to assess wall motion in patients with syndrome X; the development of computer software applications for the preclinical detection of heart muscle involvement in cardiomyopathy patients; the use of contrast echocardiography for enhanced improved endocardial border detection and myocardial perfusion at rest and during stress; the development of experimental models to image myocarditis using conjugated microbubbles. He is the past President of the British Society of Echocardiography and President-Elect of the European Association of Echocardiography of the ESC.

Dr Joseph Kisslo is Professor of Medicine at Duke University, Durham, NC USA. Dr. Kisslo's research has centered around the development and initial application of new ultrasound imaging devices. Focussed principally on morphologic diagnosis in the early years, the work has become progressively more physiologic in its orientation. After more than two decades there are now 300 original research papers, several textbooks and other materials. Dr. Kisslo has distinguished himself as the first to use phased array ultrasound imaging in the human body and, accordingly, was the first to describe most of the disease for which the technique is now commonplace. He was very early into the applications of Doppler color flow imaging and transesophageal imaging with ultrasound. He has served as an officer or on the Board of a variety of national and international bodies. He was one of the first Presidents of the American Society of Echocardiography. He reviews in all aspects of cardiac imaging, but principally echocardiography. Over the past 15 years he has also had a keen interest in medical economics and has served on various professional and governmental boards in describing medical costs and dealing with medical economics. More recently, he has taken interest in adult re-education through remote learning means (telemedicine) and has become the Clinical Director of Telemedicine at Duke. He is Executive Producer of the world's largest telemedicine program (Echo in Context) which has run for the past 14 years. This was the first educational event to circumnavigate the globe live. He is a frequent scientific and motivational lecturer to scientific organizations and industry. He serves as advisor to several governmental and industrial organizations.