Dr Ricardo Petraco Da Cunha

Dr Ricardo Petraco is a Cardiology Specialist Registrar and a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Circulatory Health and National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London.

Dr Petraco graduated from The Federal Faculty of Medical Sciences (FFFCMPA) and undertook his junior General Medical Training at the Santa Casa University Hospital in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He came to the UK in 2006 to start his higher specialist training in Cardiology.

Throughout his career, Dr Petraco has been a high achiever on clinical and academic grounds. As an undergraduate, he was awarded two Scientific Initiation Scholarships by the National Research and Technology Council (CNPq, Brazil). In the UK, he worked as a junior Research Fellow at the Royal Brompton Hospital, in the Adult Congenital Heart Unit under Professor Gatzoulis. He helped to identify markers of poor prognosis in adult patients with congenital heart disease.  After passing his membership examination (MRCP UK), he started clinical work as a Specialist Registrar in Cardiology at the Royal Brompton and St Mary’s Hospitals. He obtained his Cardiology national training number in the West Midlands Deanery in 2008. Currently, he is taking time out from his clinical training rotation to obtain a PhD in Cardiology.

Dr Petraco joined the International Centre for Circulatory Health cardiology research group in 2010, working under Dr Justin Davies, Dr Darrel Francis, Professor Jamil Mayet and Professor Alun Hughes. His academic interests are in the pathophysiological mechanisms behind cardiac disorders such as Heart Failure and Myocardial Ischaemia. More specifically, his projects include:

• The study of longitudinal myocardial dyssynchrony induced by dobutamine stress as a marker of coronary artery disease.
• The application of 3D echocardiography and wave intensity analysis to understand the mechanisms of diastolic function and dysfunction, aiming to develop a non-invasive measure of diastolic suction.
• Contribution to engineering studies on the physiology of flow in coronary stents and models of aortic stenosis.