6th TMVR/TTVR Planning Workshop

Dr. João L. Cavalcante is the Section Head for Cardiac Imaging for the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute, the largest cardiology practice in the Twin Cities, and Director of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation's Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center and Core Lab.

His passion for multimodality imaging and focus on valve and structural heart disease has led to training of several international scholars, over 200 peer-reviewed original investigations, several book chapters, training workshops, in addition to national and international lectures. He is the Associate Editor for the European Heart Journal and was recently named the Inaugural Innovation Chair of the Van Tassel Innovation Center at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation.

Dr. Victor Cheng is a cardiologist at the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute® who completed his internal residency training at UCSF in 2004, Dr. Cheng joined the general cardiology fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He started working on imaging research with Dr. Daniel Berman in 2006 and became interested in the role of cardiac CT in clinical care, particularly for managing of coronary artery disease. As a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Cheng was part of both institutional and cross-institutional teams working on multiple aspects of cardiac CT research, with a significant focus on coronary atherosclerosis. In 2012, he took a position at Oklahoma Heart Institute in Tulsa to develop a cardiac CT program. With hard work, good timing, and a bit of luck, the CT program grew strong legs of its own by the time he joined the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute in July of 2019

Dr. Vinnie Bapat earned his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgeon degrees, followed by Master of Surgery and Master of Cardiothoracic Surgery degrees at the University of Bombay in India and King Edward Memorial Hospital. Dr. Bapat was a cardiac surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital and professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. He also previously served as professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Guys and St. Thomas’ Hospital, London and continues to hold that position as visiting professor. Dr. Vinnie Bapat joined the Valve Science Center team in June 2020, bringing his extensive expertise as a cardiothoracic surgeon and innovator in treatment of heart valve disease. He also works directly with patients as the Chair of cardiothoracic surgery at the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute®.

Less than 2% of structural and interventional cardiologists are women in the United States. Nishtha Sodhi, MD, FACC, is among this small group of highly trained, expert female physicians. As a structural and interventional cardiologist, Dr. Sodhi diagnoses heart-related issues. However, she also has the additional years of training and expertise required to perform percutaneous, or minimally invasive, procedures to fix these problems. For certain patients, these procedures are an alternative to traditional open-heart surgery.

Board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Disease and the National Board of Echocardiography, Dr. Sodhi has particular expertise in transcatheter therapies for structural and valvular heart disease. She also specializes in the interventional treatment of coronary artery disease.

Raised in New Jersey, Dr. Sodhi attended an accelerated honors program in medical education at Villanova University where she was a St. Martin de Porres Merit Scholar and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in science, a minor in Spanish, and a certificate in business. She completed medical school at Drexel University College of Medicine, where she received the Alpha Omega Alpha National Honor Medical Society (AOA) Carolyn L. Kuckein Research Fellowship Scholarship and the American Association of Thoracic Surgery (AATS) National Research Scholarship in Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Dr. Sodhi completed her internal medicine residency training at Cleveland Clinic, where she was awarded The American Heart Association Clinical Cardiology Minority Grant. She then pursued her cardiology, interventional cardiology and structural heart disease fellowships at Barnes Jewish Hospital of Washington University St. Louis. There, she was awarded the American Heart Association’s Women in Cardiology Trainee Award for Excellence and received the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Quality Summit Scholarship.

Dr. Sodhi holds several leadership positions on national committees, including the Education Standards and Outcomes Committee and the Awards Committee of the ACC. She previously served on the Accreditation Compliance Workgroup, the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) ACTION Registry Committee for Quality Improvement in STEMI and NSTEMI, and was part of the founding committee to create the Women in Cardiology Section of the ACC Missouri Chapter.

In her free time, Dr. Sodhi enjoys outdoor activities and spending time with family and friends.

Jaffar Khan, MD is an interventional cardiologist and Staff Clinician at the NHLBI, NIH. He has a special interest in structural heart disease innovation. He led the invention and development of transcatheter electrosurgical techniques to cut heart tissue, including LAMPOON to prevent LVOT obstruction from TMVR, BASILICA to prevent coronary obstruction from TAVR, and ELASTIC/ELASTA-Clip to displace a MitraClip to enable TMVR. He has developed both annular and leaflet-based tricuspid valve repair procedures (PASTA, Antepasta, and TASTI) and helped translate them into patients. He contributed to the pre-clinical development of the Transmural Systems’ Mitral Cerclage Annuloplasty Device and Transcaval Closure Device. His goal is to continue to innovate devices and procedures to treat heart disease alongside clinical practice in interventional cardiology.

Dr. James (Jamie) McCabe received his medical degree from Yale University. He completed 10 years of post-medical school training at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Brigham and Women's Hospital / Harvard Medical School. Dr. McCabe is currently the Section Chief of Interventional Cardiology and Medical Director of the Cardiac Cath Labs at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. He is a nationally recognized clinician educator and investigator in transcatheter therapies for valvular heart disease.

Dr. Miho Fukui started at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation as a Senior International Research Scholar at the Valve Science Center. She completed her cardiology training in Hyogo, Japan. In October 2017, she came to University of Pittsburgh as a post-doctorate research scholar to obtain advanced training in multi-modality imaging in structure/valvular heart disease under the supervision of Dr. João Cavalcante. In September 2018, she started at the Valve Science Center at Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation and is now the lead analyst for the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center. In her career, she has co-authored over 45 peer-reviewed publications, including a first author role on many of them. Miho has also given 36 scientific presentations and was recognized as a “Young Leader” at the Cardiovascular Research Technologies (CRT) conference in 2022. 

Dr. Paul Sorajja received his medical degree from Mayo Medical School, and completed his Internal Medicine Residency and Cardiology Fellowship at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. During 1998-99, he was a clinical research fellow in myopathy at St. George’s Hospital in London, UK. Dr. Sorajja joined the Mayo Clinic staff in 2006, achieving the rank of Professor of Medicine in 2012. In 2013, Dr. Sorajja joined the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute®.

Dr. Sorajja’s expertise is interventional cardiology, with a focus on bringing the latest innovative technologies to patients with valvular and structural heart disease. He was part of the team that performed the first transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) in the US, and has the largest worldwide experience with the therapy. Dr. Sorajja currently serves as a national investigator for TMVR and also for clinical trials in percutaneous treatment for tricuspid regurgitation. He has served on several national practice committees for valvular heart disease and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Dr. Sorajja has published more than 250 manuscripts and several books. He routinely lectures at national and international medical conferences, and has received awards for his expertise in medical education. Dr. Sorajja is also highly active in developing intellectual property in these areas.

Dr. Nadira Hamid is a board-certified cardiologist who specializes in Echocardiography at the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute®. She is board certified in both echocardiography and cardiac computed tomography.

Dr. Hamid graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (Dublin). She completed her postgraduate degrees with the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland (MRCPI) and Royal College of Physicians in United Kingdom (MRCP UK). She completed her residencies in Dublin, Ireland and then went on to complete her cardiology fellowship at the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) in Singapore. She also has research training and completed her Master of Clinical Investigation (MCI) from the National University of Singapore. She completed her Advanced Echocardiography fellowship/Interventional Echocardiography fellowship (Structural Heart Interventions) at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York.