ASPIRE-AF

David Conen

Senior Scientist

David Conen is currently the Principal Investigator and Senior Scientist at the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) and an Associate Professor of Medicine at McMaster University. He serves as a staff cardiologist at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) and Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and is the Cardiology Clinical Site Lead at the Juravinski Hospital. Conen obtained his MD degree at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and holds a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA. He completed a 2-year postdoctoral research fellowship in clinical epidemiology. His research focuses on perioperative medicine and atrial fibrillation.

Conen is the Principal Investigator of two large multinational clinical trials aimed at preventing and treating perioperative atrial fibrillation (COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF) and is involved in the leadership of many international cardiovascular and perioperative trials. COP-AF has recently been presented and published. His research activities also include conducting large epidemiological cohort studies that examine risk factors for the occurrence and consequences of atrial fibrillation. He has published over 250 manuscripts in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has received several prestigious grants and awards in both Switzerland and Canada. Conen has extensive knowledge in the design, development, management, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of clinical trials and large-scale epidemiology studies.

Tina Stegmann

Research Fellow

Tina Stegmann is a Research Fellow at PHRI supervised by PHRI scientist David Conen. Her main research activities at PHRI will focus on the prevalence and distribution pattern of vascular brain lesions and correlating cognitive function in patients with atrial fibrillation compared to patients with high cardiovascular disease burden. A comparative analysis of large clinical trials in collaboration with the study team of the COMPASS-MIND trial is planned. Tina will also be involved in international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from the PHRI (COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF).

Tina obtained her medical degree from the University of Leipzig, Germany in 2017 and is a cardiology resident at the University Hospital Leipzig, Department of Cardiology since 2018.

Her previous work focused on the relationship between heart failure and the comorbidity atrial fibrillation, such as telemedical non-invasive interventions in patients with chronic heart failure compared to usual care. Tina mainly contributed to the Investigator-initiated German study addressing the mechanisms of Sacubitril-Valsartan on heart failure hemodynamics by using noninvasive pressure-volume analysis. Tina is involved in multicenter clinical trials as an investigator.

Michael Wang

Investigator

Michael Ke Wang is an Investigator at PHRI and an MSc student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University, supervised by David Conen. His main interests are in perioperative medicine and perioperative atrial fibrillation. Michael is actively involved in the conduct of large international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from PHRI; he is the project officer of the COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF trials.

Michael is a Clinical Scholar in the Division of General Internal Medicine at McMaster University. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Ottawa and completed his internal medicine residency, general internal medicine fellowship, and perioperative vascular training at McMaster University.

Jessica Vincent

Program Director

Jessica Vincent has more than 15 years’ experience in coordinating and managing large, international clinical trials. As Associate Program Manager, she oversees interventional trials, registries, and observational research studies in the areas of perioperative medicine, cardiac surgery, and digital health.

She holds an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree from Queens University, and a Master of Clinical Epidemiology Degree from the University of Newcastle.