Forum Co-Chairs
Co-Founder, Penn
Amyloidosis Center
Professor of Neurology
University of Pennsylvania
School of Medicine
Philadelphia, PA
Indiana University Amyloidosis
Research Group
Associate Professor,
Clinical Medicine
Indiana University School of Medicine
Indianapolis, IN
Director, Cardiac
Amyloidosis Program
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University
Portland, OR
Roland Seidler, Jr. Professor of Medicine
Chair, Internal Medicine
Hem/Onc/Internist
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Co-Director, Stanford Amyloid Center
Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine)
Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA
Wiesman Award Winners & Quarterly Progress Updates
Senthil Selvaraj, MD, MS, MA (2024)
Dr. Selvaraj is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiologist, Faculty Member of the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Executive Faculty in the Center for Precision Health, and Faculty Lead of Heart Failure Research at Duke University. A fundamental goal of his research includes advanced imaging and epidemiological characterization of infiltrative cardiomyopathies including ATTR-CA. This line of inquiry has investigated the impact of the amyloidogenic V142I transthyretin variant on individual and population levels (including Selvaraj et al., Circ Heart Fail, 2025; Selvaraj et al., JAMA, 2024; Selvaraj et al., JAMA Cardiology, 2023, Selvaraj et al., JACC, 2021). His work is currently, or has recently, been supported by an NHLBI K23 and R03, AHA career development award, Doris Duke Physician Scientist Fellowship Award, American Society for Nuclear Cardiology award, Measey Foundation Award, Mandel Foundation grant, Duke Heart Center Leadership Council award, Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics grant, Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research, and Winn Foundation. Future work aims to characterize the age-dependent penetrance of the V142I variant leveraging deep phenotyping alongside investigating modifiers of risk.
June 2026 Progress Update
- Actively studying genetic modifiers of V142I using whole genome sequencing across multiple patient cohorts (proposal approved; data sources and analyses are currently proprietary)
- Initiated ongoing evaluation of SGLT2 inhibition on ATTR-related proteins
- Additional samples have been, and continue to be, collected
- ATTR-associated publications to-date:
Haywood HB, Ikeaba U, Fonarow GC, … Selvaraj S, et al. Outpatient clinic visits before and after hospitalizations for heart failure with and without transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy. Eur J Heart Fail. Published online May 10, 2026.
Selvaraj S, et al. Effect of Acoramidis on Temporal Variability of Serum Transthyretin and its Influence on Outcomes: Insights From the ATTRibute-CM Trial. Late Breaking Clinical Trial Presentation at the European Society of Cardiology Heart Failure Association Congress in Madrid, Spain. May 2026.
Rao VN, Claggett BL, Khouri MG, Shah AM, Solomon SD, Selvaraj S. Late-Life Echocardiographic Effects of the Amyloidogenic p.V142I Transthyretin Variant. Circ Heart Fail. 2025;18(7):e013212.
Shoji S, Solomon N, Chiswell K, Selvaraj S, et al. Hospital-Level Variation and Predictive Model for Diagnosis of Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy Among Patients Hospitalized Due to Heart Failure. J Card Fail. 2025;31(9):1480-1485.
Gunn AH, Haque M, Khouri MG, Selvaraj S. Transthyretin amyloid depletion therapy: lessons from the phase 2 trial of coramitug. Heart Fail Rev. 2026;31(1):32. Published March 9, 2026.
Shoji S, Ikeaba U, Fonarow GC, Selvaraj S, et al. Clinical Outcomes and Health Care Costs in Patients Hospitalized With Heart Failure and Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy: Findings From GWTG-HF. J Card Fail. Published online November 8, 2025.
Regan JA, Kittleson MM, Khouri MG, Ruberg FL, Selvaraj S. Serum Transthyretin as a Biomarker of Treatment Response in ATTR Cardiomyopathy. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2025;85(20):1924-1926.
Regan JA, Fontana M, Selvaraj S. Genotype- vs Phenotype-Guided Approaches to Improve ATTR Detection. JAMA Cardiol. 2024;9(11):957-959.
Regan JA, Khouri MG, Olabisi OA…Selvaraj S, et al. Should We Systematically Screen for the Amyloidogenic V142I Variant?. J Card Fail. 2025;31(1):136-139.
Ani Nalbandian, MD, MPH (2024)
Dr. Ani Nalbandian completed medical school at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, followed by Internal Medicine Residency and General Cardiology Fellowship at Columbia University Irving Medical Center-New York Presbyterian Hospital. During cardiology fellowship, she completed a Master’s in Patient Oriented Research at the Mailman School of Public Health, and conducted a pilot clinical trial investigating body composition analysis and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors in transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy which was supported by a T32 NIH-funded Training Grant and the Glorney-Raisbeck Fellowship Award in Cardiovascular Diseases granted by the New York Academy of Medicine. Following cardiology fellowship, Dr. Nalbandian completed an additional 1-year ACGME-accredited fellowship in Critical Care Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center-New York Presbyterian Hospital, becoming the inaugural dual-boarded critical care cardiologist trained at the institution.
Dr. Nalbandian joined as faculty in the Division of Cardiology in August 2024, where she attends primarily as a cardiac intensivist, and also has a general outpatient clinical practice. She was recently awarded the 1st Annual Wiesman Award for Excellence in Early-Career ATTR Research by Cornerstone Medical Education (sponsored by AstraZeneca and Ionis Pharmaceuticals), granting her the ability to continue her clinical research within this field of interest. In addition, Dr. Nalbandian aspires to help develop a longitudinal multi-disciplinary care clinic for patients post critical illness, serving both clinical and research needs of this growing patient population.
June 2026 Progress Update
- Revised IRB submission approved in May 2026
- New data collection is ongoing (PFTs, chest CTs/X-rays)
- Integration of AI tools for ATTR detection via collaboration with Dr. Pierre Elias (Medical Director for AI at New York Presbyterian); IRB approval now covers Dr. Elias’s inclusion in the project
- Data analysis planned for September 2026
- Manuscript preparation and submission planned for November-December 2026
- ATTR-associated publications to-date:
Lu R, Nalbandian A, Akita K, et al. Proteomics Profiling Reveals Circulating Biomarkers and Dysregulated Pathways in Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy. Circ Heart Fail. 2026;19(2):e013220.
Smiley DA, Einstein AJ, O’Gorman KJ…Nalbandian A, et al. Early Detection of Transthyretin Cardiac Amyloidosis Using 124I-Evuzamitide Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography. JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2025;18(7):799-811.
Planned submission – “Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor therapy and body composition analysis in transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy: a prospective pilot study” – to Amyloid (resubmission deadline July 3, 2026)
Evangelos Oikonomou, MD, DPhil (2025)
Evangelos (Evan) K. Oikonomou, MD, DPhil, is a cardiologist-data scientist, and an Assistant Professor at the Yale School of Medicine. His research focuses on developing multimodal artificial intelligence (AI) tools that combine common cardiac diagnostics and electronic health record data to enable targeted digital screening for transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM). His recent work includes a multicenter study on the AI-guided detection of ATTR-CM using point-of-care ultrasonography (Lancet Digital Health 2025, PMID: 39890242), a multimodal ECG-echo biomarker that tracks the preclinical progression of ATTR-CM (Eur Heart J 2025, PMID: 40679604), and a foundation-model framework for precision deployment of AI-ECG screening (TARGET-AI). His future work aims to translate these AI-based biomarkers into pragmatic clinical workflows to enable the timely diagnosis of ATTR-CM.
June 2026 Progress Update
- Work initiated on building a multimodal environment across the Yale multi-hospital health-system to examine the development of a targeted approach to ATTR-CM screening that leverages complementary AI-assisted diagnostic and screening tools
- This approach now encompasses 1) EHRs 2) ECG 3) Echocardiography 4) Cardiac CT imaging
- Large repository of paired ECGs and echocardiograms now being curated
- Opportunistic CT scans for the multimodal enrichment of digital screening pathways for ATTR-CM commenced during Q2 2026
- Construction, storage, and pre-processing of this expansive dataset is all supported by Wiesman Award funding from AstraZeneca and Ionis Pharmaceuticals
- The strategic goal, which will be evaluated in study analyses, is to learn the signatures of ATTR-CM across all possible opportunistic encounters of patients within health-systems
- Feasibility of this study approach has been validated and published in NEJM AI, which lays the groundwork for this multimodal integration
- Data pre-processing, across all modalities in the integration, is expected to continue throughout 2026; modeling and external validation activities planned to begin in ~Q3 2026
- Manuscript submissions for this work are being planned for major conferences, including ACC and HFSA, in 2027
- Gave presentations on digital screening pathways for conditions such as ATTR-CM, including an invited American College of Cardiology (ACC) Webinar “AI Revolutionizing Cardiology: Clinical Tools, Research Advances, and Ethical Insights” (May 29, 2026) as well as an invited keynote in the Greek Amyloidosis symposium in April 2026 (given remotely)
- Awarded an American Heart Association (AHA) Career Development Award on the digital screening of underdiagnosed cardiomyopathies. I am also listed as co-PI on a recently awarded Wellcome Leap grant focusing on AI for screening of cardiovascular disease in women
- ATTR-associated publications to-date:
Oikonomou EK, Asselbergs FW, Vardas PE. Updated critical quality criteria for real-world artificial intelligence implementation. Eur Heart J. Published online February 24, 2026.
Oikonomou EK, Craig NJ, Holste G, et al. Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Echocardiography as a Surrogate for Multimodality Aortic Stenosis Imaging: Post Hoc Analysis of a Clinical Trial. Circ Cardiovasc Imaging. 2026;19(2):e018353.
Oikonomou EK, Batinica B, Dhingra LS, et al. TARGET-AI: a foundational approach for the targeted deployment of artificial intelligence electrocardiography in the electronic health record. NEJM AI. 2026;3(2).
Croon PM, …, Oikonomou EK, … Khera R et al. Electrocardiogram-based deep learning enables scalable screening of transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy. medRxiv. 2024.09.30.24314651.
Oikonomou EK, Chan K, Patel P, et al. Early Prediction of Heart Failure From Routine Cardiac CT Using Radiomic Phenotyping of Epicardial Fat. J Am Coll Cardiol. Published online April 1, 2026.
Oikonomou EK. The Emerging Role of ECG-AI as a Digital Risk Biomarker for Incident Heart Failure. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2026;87(8):1006-1008.
Michael Chetrit, MD, FACC (2025)
Michael Chetrit received his medical doctorate from the University of Montreal in Montreal, Canada. He completed his training as an internist and cardiologist at the McGill University Health Centre, McGill University in Montreal as well. He completed additional training at the Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland Ohio where he gained expertise in advanced cardiac imaging including cardiac MRI. He also trained in cardiac amyloidosis and pericardial diseases. He is currently assistant professor with the department of Medicine at McGill University and a staff cardiologist at the McGill University Health Center. In addition to directing the McGill Amyloidosis Project and the MUHC Pericardial diseases clinic, he remains an active researcher with interest in CMR and cardiac amyloidosis as well as multiparametric and artificial intelligence applications in CMR.
June 2026 Progress Update
- Recruited and scanned 13 more wrists since March 2026 (5 for substudy)
- Implemented 1 new sequence (in addition to automated MTR pipeline (developed in-house), T1rho sequences, which continue to be refined)
- New sequence = magnetic resonance spectroscopy, designed to allow for a “proton signature” specific to amyloid if hypothesis is validated
- Development of an auto-contouring algorithm has begun, with the aim of automating the process
- IRB submitted and approved for UNRAVEL substudy
- Post IRB approval, wrist scanning already underway – inclusive of patients with confirmed ATTR in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) to better optimize images, as well as patients with confirmed ATTR-CM and CTS (and thus, the assumption is that CTS is associated with ATTR)
- Study has now expanded to include another health center and funds from the Wiesman Award are being used to pay a student assistant
- A methods manuscript is now in draft stages, describing this first-ever usage of an MTR sequence in the wrist
- Novel protocols have now been developed for the spine and nerves to perform the same sequences we have developed for wrists, thereby broadening implications of this research potentially beyond CTS
- ATTR-associated publications to-date:
Saldanha M, Chen LK, Solomon J…Chetrit M, et al. Beyond the Heart: Exploring Extracardiac Manifestations in Cardiac Amyloidosis for Early Diagnosis. Curr Cardiol Rep. 2025;27(1):105.
Aldajani A, Chetrit M. Diffuse 18F-FDG PET Uptake in a Patient With Biopsy-Proven ATTR Cardiac Amyloidosis: A Potential Pitfall in Interpretation. CJC Open. 2023;5(8):650-653.
Chetrit M, Xu B, Kwon DH, et al. Imaging-Guided Therapies for Pericardial Diseases. JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2020;13(6):1422-1437.
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