Julie De Backer MD, PhD, FESC

Julie De Backer took additional training as a Clinical Geneticist in parallel with a predoctoral training funded by the Special Funds for Research from the Ghent University. After her Ph.D., she obtained a combined assignment as head of the clinic at the Center for Medical Genetics and at the Department of Cardiology. She developed her own research line in genetic aortic disease and set up a Multidisciplinary Expertise Center for Genetic and Congenital Cardiovascular Disease at the Ghent University Hospital.

She is involved in several international collaborations and consortia in the field of Heritable Thoracic Aortic Disorders. She was involved as a co-investigator on the BBEST trial assessing the effect of Selector on clinical outcome in patients with vascular Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (PI Prof. Pierre Boutouyrie). She was a member of the Organizing Committee of the International Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome meeting held in Ghent in 2012.

She obtained a post-doc grant as Senior Clinical Researcher at the Funds for Scientific Research in 2008 with a renewal in 2013. She co-promoted the Ph.D. thesis of Marjolijn Renard who is a major contributor to this project and is currently supervising two Ph.D. students.

She is the president of the Belgian Working Group on Adult Congenital Heart Disease and nucleus member of the European Working group on Adult Congenital Heart Disease. To date, she has published 86 papers in international, peer-reviewed journals, ten as the first author, and ten as a senior author her h-index is 24. She has published three book chapters. She gave 43 invited lectures, at major international conferences, including the European Society for Cardiology, Euro Echo, American Heart Association, Association for European Paediatric Cardiology.