Dr Brian Joyce began his scientific career with a BS in Physics from Carleton College. His desire to improve the world around him, in particular the lives of other people, prompted him to transition into medical research where he worked in research on orthopedics, aging and end-of-life care. Upon completing his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2016, he became a molecular epidemiologist. His research focuses on studying biomarkers and other epigenetic factors involved in aging and age-related diseases, as well as the role that social determinants of health play in these processes. He can be found on Twitter @BriChiGuy.

Dr Shijie Liu is a research scientist in the laboratory of Dr James Martin at Texas Heart Institute. He earned his PhD from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at East China Normal University, where he studied the role of the Wnt-associated gene Lgr4 in intestinal regeneration. As a research scientist at Texas Heart Institute, Shijie’s studies specifically focus on the Hippo and Wnt pathway in heart regeneration. His recent work demonstrated Wls, a direct target of YAP, regulates the communication between cardiomyocyte and fibroblast and is required for neonatal heart regeneration. Shijie was awarded an AHA postdoctoral fellowship in 2018 and AHA Career Development Award in 2021. His future goal is to become an independent investigator in academic biomedical research.

Dr Liujun Jiang earned his BS, MS and PhD from Zhejiang University and now is now a resident in internal medicine at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine. During his doctoral training, supervised by Dr Qingbo Xu, he became interested in the role of stem/progenitor cells in vascular diseases. Since the completion of his PhD, Dr Jiang has focused on the disease-related cellular heterogeneity of vessels, and aims to develop novel therapeutic targets with a translational perspective.

Dr Yong Wang earned his undergraduate degree and PhD from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (BUCM). He pursued a visiting scholarship in Dr Xiaolei Xu’s lab at Mayo Clinic in 2017, where he noted a stage-specific functions of autophagy of an Anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity (AIC) zebrafish model. Based on this observation, he leveraged zebrafish and mouse genetics and developed a time-dependent, autophagy-based therapy for AIC. In 2019, Dr Wang returned to BUCM and established his own independent laboratory. Now he is endeavoring to screen for novel Atg-7 based AIC therapeutic drugs from natural products while providing clinical care to AIC patients.

Dr Xiaoguang Lu earned her PhD at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. She has participated in the research published in this issue since 2019 at the Mayo Clinic as a joint PhD student. Dr Lu is interested in autophagy and genetics in cardio-oncology. She demonstrated that autophagy has dynamic activities along the process of doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity pathogenesis. As a physician, she continues to pursue her fundamental research while providing clinical care to patients. When she’s not working, she enjoys working out at the gym, traveling and spending time with family.

Dr Stephan R. Künzel is a physician scientist at University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden, Germany. During his doctoral training in general and in clinical pharmacology with Dr Ursula Ravens and Dr Ali El-Armouche, he became interested in fibrosis mechanisms and translational therapies. For the past four years, Dr Künzel led a junior research group with particular focus on cardiac fibroblast dysfunction and drug repurposing. Currently he is pursuing clinical training focused on auto-immune-driven fibrotic disease affecting the heart and non-cardiac tissues. He can be found on Twitter @ @Stepho791.

Maximilian Hoffmann is a fourth-year medical student at the Technische Universität Dresden. He started his doctoral training in Dr El-Armouche’s lab in Dr Künzel’s group. In his thesis, he focused on the therapeutic effects of repurposed mesalazine on adverse cardiac remodeling induced by loss of polo-like kinase 2 and subsequent increase of the pro-fibrotic cytokine osteopontin. After graduation, Mr. Hoffmann would like to link his bedside work as a physician with benchside work as a scientist.