Who We Are
Scientific Advisory Team
Maurice Sarano, MD
Dr. Sarano is a cardiologist and internationally recognized expert in heart valve diseases. He was the founding director of the Heart Valve Clinic and Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, and was a founding member and past president of the Heart Valve Society. Dr. Sarano has authored over 490 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters mostly on valvular heart diseases and mentored numerous medical students and trainees who have become leading scholars in heart valve diseases. He
is currently Senior Scientist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute directing research and innovations in valve diseases. He is the founder of ValThera LLC, a startup company located in Minneapolis, MN, dedicated to developing innovative transcatheter therapies for valve diseases.
Vuyisile Nkomo, MD
Dr. Nkomo is Director of the Valve Clinic at Mayo Clinic and Vice Chair of the Division of Structural Heart Disease. He is a Professor of Medicine who has authored over 150 peer reviewed publications including the most frequently cited paper on the burden of valve disease in the United States. Dr. Nkomo is an experienced cardiac imager and contributor to international guideline documents for the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging and the American Society of Echocardiography.
Francesco Grigioni, MD, PhD.
Dr. Grigioni is Professor of Medicine and Chair of Cardiology at the Universita Campus Bio-Medica di Roma (Italy). An internationally recognized researcher in heart valve diseases, he is an associate editor of the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology. He was the lead investigator for the Mitral Regurgitation International Database (MIDA) study, a multicenter registry of outcomes from mitral valve disease. Data from MIDA has transformed clinical decision making in valvular heart disease.