Gianluigi Bisleri MD, FRCSC

Dr. Bisleri is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, a Cardiac Surgeon – An entrepreneur at St. Michael’s Hospital, and an Investigator at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute. Dr. Bisleri has extensive expertise in the full spectrum of adult cardiac surgery with special expertise in the full spectrum of minimally invasive cardiac surgery: in particular, he has been focusing on developing less invasive approaches for cardiac valve repair and replacement as well as novel and advanced reconstruction techniques (he has developed a novel technique for ischemic and degenerative mitral valve repair). Dr. Bisleri is also an integral member of the Structural Heart Program at St. Michael’s Hospital with direct involvement in the percutaneous treatment of valve disease. 

Dr. Bisleri pioneered the totally endoscopic treatment of atrial fibrillation in 2005 and contributed to the introduction of the hybrid approach and combined epicardial/endocardial advanced mapping in combination with the Arrhythmia team (he is the only surgeon offering such an approach in Canada to date); he has performed the largest series of Cox Cryo-Maze procedures in Canada.

Dr. Bisleri completed his medical education as well as cardiac surgical training in Italy (respectively at the University of Brescia and the University of Padova): during his residency, he also further expanded his clinical and research interests in minimally invasive/robotic/arrhythmia surgery thanks to a research fellowship at Columbia University in New York. He received additional surgical training as Senior Fellow at the Essex Cardiothoracic Centre (UK) before returning to Italy as an Attending Surgeon and Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Brescia in 2009 where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014.

In 2016, Dr. Bisleri was recruited as an Attending Surgeon and Associate Professor in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at Queen’s University and Kingston Health Sciences Centre and he has been cross-appointed as Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences at Queen’s University since 2018. Over his tenure at Queen’s University, Dr. Bisleri has been focusing on expanding the portfolio of minimally invasive options from a mitral valve repair to arrhythmia surgery and robotically-assisted CABG surgery as well as endoscopic conduit harvesting (with an original technique).

Dr. Bisleri has authored more than 115 peer-reviewed papers and more than 180 presentations at national/international meetings. He previously developed the Cardiac Surgery Innovation Lab which fostered a robust clinical and translational collaboration with several teams and spans from basic science to evaluation of clinical outcomes; furthermore, Dr. Bisleri has consistently supervised students/residents/fellows (both nationally and internationally) in order to support the scientific growth of junior colleagues. Dr. Bisleri has been acting as Principal or Co-Investigator in several research grants both in Europe and in Canada with secured funding in excess of 1.5 million CAD to date.

Dr. Bisleri holds 3 US patents related to surgical devices to facilitate minimally invasive surgical approaches and he has several ongoing collaborations in order to refine and develop novel surgical and transcatheter tools.