Anthony “Tony” DeMartino currently is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD in the United States. He received his PhD from the University of California Santa Barbara in Chemistry under the tutelage of Peter Ford, a nitric oxide (NO) and kinetics specialist, where he studied NO chemistry and explored developing other possible novel small molecule bioregulators, such as carbon disulfide (CS2). Under the mentorship of Mark Gladwin at the University of Pittsburgh, an expert in NO translational redox medicine and biology, Tony focused his postdoctoral efforts on exploring the possibility of a labile nitrosyl ferrous heme (NO-ferroheme) as an independent signaling molecule in the vasculature, one which shields the NO moiety from scavenging in blood. This culminated in a manuscript at Nat Chem Biol in 2023, showing that labile NO-ferroheme potently vasodilates in circulation, inhibits platelet activation as well as other anti-inflammatory effects. He currently continues in his laboratory to fully characterize NO-ferroheme signaling and transport, as well as develop sensitive biological detection techniques especially for blood and plasma as just published in Redox Biol this year. He and his collaborators are exploring the application of NO-ferroheme and NO-ferroheme formation in various disease state models including acute lung injury, ischemia/reperfusion injury, sepsis, and sickle cell disease, among others.

Peter Sandner is a pharmacist by training, holds a PhD in Physiology from the University of Regensburg and is an appointed extraordinary professor for pharmacology at Hannover Medical School. Peter is working in Drug Discovery Research of Bayer AG, Pharmaceuticals at the Research Center at Wuppertal, Germany for almost 25 years and was nominated at Chief Scientist in 2016. Within Bayer Peter continued his academic research on cyclic nucleotides and cGMP by nonclinical profiling of cGMP-increasing therapeutic principles, especially phosphodiesterase inhibitors and stimulators and activators of sGC. He is responsible for the nonclinical research with sGC stimulators and sGC activators in various therapeutic areas.

Prof. Cannone is Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Parma, Parma, Italy, Research Collaborator at the Cardiorenal Research Laboratory at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA and Scientific Advisor for E-STAR Biotech Company. Prof. Cannone’s translational research studies have been focused on genetics and cardiometabolic properties of natriuretic peptides. More specifically, Prof. Cannone has analyzed the clinical phenotype and risk associated with genetic variants of natriuretic peptides. In animal model of hypertension and metabolic syndrome, Prof. Cannone has also investigated the cardiovascular and metabolic actions of MANP, which is a novel ANP-like peptide designed at Mayo Clinic. Importantly, funded by the American Heart Association and Mayo Clinic Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Prof. Cannone has also served as the Principal Investigator in a clinical study focused on evaluating the acute cardiometabolic action of MANP in subjects with hypertension and metabolic syndrome. As Scientific Advisor, Prof. Cannone is currently involved in a phase II clinical trial aimed to test MANP in difficult to control/resistant hypertension. Prof. Cannone has been the recipient of awards from the Heart Failure Society of America and the Italian Society of Arterial Hypertension. Prof. Cannone’s long-term goal is the development of a natriuretic peptide-based therapy for cardiometabolic disease.

Aisah is a Lecturer in Cardiovascular Pharmacology at Queen Mary University of London. She graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Pharmacology before gaining her PhD from King’s College London, under the mentorship of Professor Susan D Brain. Aisah moved to William Harvey Research Institute in 2016 as a postdoctoral research fellow in the lab of Professor Adrian Hobbs. Aisah’s research focuses on studying the role of C-type natriuretic peptide in vascular remodelling and aortic aneurysms. She was the Chair for the IUPHAR ECR Committee (2018-2022). Aisah is a Senior Editor for Pharmacology Matters, BPS Ambassador regional coordinator and member of BPS Engagement Committee.

Dr Anida Velagic is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Heart Failure Pharmacology Laboratory at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Her research focuses on targeting pathways that drive cardiovascular disease development using animal models and human cells. Her research has been published in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology (featured as 'hot article', 2023), the British Journal of Pharmacology (selected as 'Editor-In-Chief's pick' and highlighted in a Monash University news article, 2022), the Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology (2021), Antioxidants and Redox Signaling (2020), and others. Her work has been recognised by awards from leading international cardiovascular societies including the International Society for Heart Research (ISHR; Student Publication Prize, 2022; Early Career Scientist Excellence Award, 2023) and American Heart Association (AHA; Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award, 2021). She has presented her work at well-attended and highly competitive prize sessions, or as an invited symposia speaker, at conferences hosted by leading national/international cardiovascular and pharmacology societies (AHA; Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, CSANZ; World Congress of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology, WCP; Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists, ASCEPT). Dr Velagic is Co-Chair of the ASCEPT Cardiovascular Special Interest Group (CV SIG), and an Editor for Frontiers in Physiology.