I am an Associate Professor of Cardiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid (since 2008) and a consultant cardiologist at Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, Madrid. I coordinate the Multidisciplinary Pulmonary Hypertension Unit (UHP), accredited as a National Reference Center (CSUR) for this rare disease and as a European Reference Center (ERN-LUNG). I am a senior researcher within the Spanish Biomedical Research Network for Cardiovascular Diseases (CIBER) and lead the Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) research group at the Institute for Health Research of Hospital 12 de Octubre.
My academic and clinical career integrates teaching excellence, high-impact research, and leadership in national and international collaborative networks, with a sustained focus on Pulmonary Hypertension.
– Teaching and capacity building. I have played a key role in modernizing undergraduate cardiology education through the implementation of flipped-classroom methodologies and case-based learning, and in the design and coordination of clinical cardiology training for senior medical students (years 4–6). At the postgraduate level, I identified an unmet educational need in PH and led the creation of the International Online Master’s Degree in Pulmonary Hypertension in 2010. I currently serve as its Director and faculty member. The program awards 60 ECTS over two years and has completed six editions, training specialists from Spain, Portugal, and Latin America, with faculty and students from more than 20 nationalities. I have supervised or co-supervised 10 PhD theses in Pulmonary Hypertension across leading Spanish universities, four of which received Extraordinary Doctoral Awards, reflecting my strong commitment to mentoring and talent development.
– Research leadership and productivity. My research profile demonstrates sustained productivity and impact, with an H-index of 40, 253 Scopus-indexed publications, 13,484 citations, and authorship of more than 40 book chapters. My research activity is centered at the Hospital 12 de Octubre Research Institute, where I lead the Pulmonary Hypertension research group. Over the last decade, I have served as Principal Investigator on four nationally funded competitive research projects (PI15/02012, PI18/01233, PI21/01690, PI24/01880) and as a collaborating investigator on multiple competitive network projects, including Precision Personalized Medicine (PMP22/00049), Knowledge Generation Projects (PID2021-123167OB-100), and R&D&I in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in Andalusia (PI-0245-2021). My commitment to training early-career researchers is evidenced by the successful mentoring of two consecutive Río Hortega fellowship awardees (CM20-00164; CM23/00237).
– Strategic infrastructures and collaborative networks. I led the design and implementation of the Spanish Pulmonary Hypertension Registry (REHAP), which I currently coordinate under the auspices of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC) and the Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR). REHAP has become a national strategic research and healthcare infrastructure, involving 61 hospitals and providing robust data on epidemiology, prognosis, and survival in PH. Participation in the registry is mandatory for national reference center accreditation by the Ministry of Health and for excellence certifications by scientific societies. In parallel, I lead the Spanish Consortium for the Genetic Study of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, integrated within REHAP, focusing on phenotype–genotype correlations. These platforms have enabled high-quality, multicenter research with substantial output in leading international journals.
– Clinical research and translational impact. I have contributed directly to shaping clinical practice through my role as co-author of the European Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pulmonary Hypertension and multiple national and international consensus documents that define care organization and quality indicators. I have also advised the Spanish Ministry of Health and scientific societies on the accreditation of Pulmonary Hypertension Units. In clinical research, I have served as Principal Investigator in multicenter, randomized phase II and phase III clinical trials that have been instrumental in the therapeutic advances in Pulmonary Hypertension. In the past six years alone, I have led participation in 25 such trials, with results published in high-impact journals, reinforcing my ability to translate research findings into clinical benefit.
