Alexander Svenningsen is a PhD-candidate at the Cardiac Exercise Research Group at the Dept. of Circulation and Medical Imaging, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. He has a background in movement science and exercise physiology and is currently working on several projects together with the dedicated team in charge of running the Norwegian Trial of Physical Exercise After Myocardial Infarction (NorEx). One of his main topics of interest is how to promote long-term exercise adherence among myocardial infarction patients, which will be addressed when he presents experiences with NorEx so far together with his main supervisor, Ulrik Wisløff.

Anja has been studying lifestyle-related disease for twenty years, with a special interest in the cellular and molecular effects of exercise training. In the recent years, she has been exploring the data collected through the Trøndelag Health study, focusing on large genetic epidemiology studies, e.g. to determine the genetic basis of cardiorespiratory fitness and the potential causal links between cardiorespiratory fitness and disease.

Asta is interested in how to optimize functional and structural brain health across the lifespan in the general population and in clinical populations such as following traumatic brain injury and in developmental or age-related cognitive impairment. To study this, she uses a variety of methods including structural and functional brain MRI and MR spectroscopy in combination with cognitive testing and health measurements as well as registry studies at the population level. She and her co-workers have followed a group of Generation 100 Study participants with MRI/MRS, cognitive testing and gut microbiome assessment from baseline, and will present results from these investigations.

Atefe's research utilizes data from both the Generation 100 Study and HUNT - the Trøndelag Health Study to study how exercise and fitness are important for brain function and the development of dementia. In a study with rats with Alzheimer's disease, we also investigate whether injections with blood from healthy, trained rats can slow the development of the disease. In the fall of 2021, we initiated ExPlas; a clinical treatment study for Alzheimer's patients where we will investigate whether exercised blood plasma transfusions can slow or reverse disease progression.

Dorthe Stensvold is a professor in Exercise Medicine, and the principal investigator of the Generation 100 Study. Her key research area is exercise physiology with a special interest in the physiological adaptation to aerobic exercise.

Emma is a PhD candidate, physiologist, and epidemiologist at the Cardiac Exercise Research Group. Her research focuses physical activity in prevention and management of hypertension and the development of transformative technology for health and lifestyle monitoring. Through her collaborations within the multidiciplinary My Medical Digital Twin project, she has co-authored papers on the medical digital twin concept, novel blood pressure sensors, machine learning, mechanistic and statistical modeling, as well as polygenetic and environmental risk factors for hypertension.

Erik Ekker Solberg is a specialist in internal medicine and cardiology. Also, he is an authorized sports medicine fellow. His career has been dedicated to sports cardiology with a special focus on screening. Also, he has focused stress and relaxation. He is the former head of the European Society of Cardiology's Section of sports cardiology, has served as a board member of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology, and has chaired the working group for preventive cardiology, cardiac rehabilitation, and sports cardiology in the Norwegian Society of Cardiology. Dr. Solberg is an editor of the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and has co-authored several European guidelines for sports cardiology.

Dr. Christensen is a Professor at the Institute for Experimental Medical Research which is located at Oslo University Hospital, Ullevål. His research focuses on identification of mechanisms causing cardiac remodelling and heart failure. Currently his research aims at elucidating molecular and cellular mechanisms for cardiac fibrosis, and to translate this knowledge into a new therapeutic strategy for heart failure treatment. He initiated, in collaboration with NTNU, the Universities of Bergen, Tromsø and Oslo, the network NorHeart aiming at promoting cardiovascular research both within Norway and abroad.

Geir Selbæk is research director at the Norwegian Centre for Ageing and Health, professor in geriatric medicine at University of Oslo and senior consultant at the memory clinic, Oslo University Hospital. He is PI of the National registry for people assessed for cognitive symptoms and the ongoing Ageing in Trøndelag population study. His main research interests are prevention of cognitive impairment and dementia, comorbidity and functional impairment in ageing, and diagnosis and treatment of dementia disorders. 

Jon Magne is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging, NTNU and a resident/cardiology trainee at St. Olavs Hospital, Trondheim. He is currently working on the Norwegian Exercise and Atrial Fibrillation Initiative (NEXAF) Trial on exercise in atrial fibrillation. His main research area is focused on the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness, exercise, cardiac adaptations, and cardiovascular disease.

Karsten is a PhD candidate at the K.G. Jebsen Center for Genetic Epidemiology. He holds three master’s degrees across fields of human physiology and clinical health science, and is actively involved in research on genetic disease risk, nutrition, performance physiology, and sports psychology. He is particularly interested in the clinical utility of genetic data and the intersection of precision medicine and public health initiatives.

Marius Myrstad is a consultant and research fellow at the Department of Internal Medicine, Bærum Hospital. He is leader of the Norwegian Exercise and Atrial Fibrillation Intitative NEXAF and the NEXAF Detraining study on effects of detraining in endurance athletes with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, an international randomized controlled trial. In the Birkebeiner studies, Myrstad has since studied associations between exercise, exercise-induced cardiac remodeling, and risk of atrial fibrillation among Norwegian recreational cross-country skiers.

Morten Andre Høydal is professor in medicine, cellular cardiology, at NTNU, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Trondheim, Norway. Høydal is the head of GMCC (Group of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology. The major aim of his research is to establish a clinically oriented basic research direction that provides novel insight to the cellular and molecular mechanisms underpinning the transition to heart failure. The ambition is to establish novel routes to targeted treatment that enhance cardiac survival during myocardial infarction as well as treatment of chronic heart failure.

Sanjay Sharma is the Medical Director for the Virgin London Marathon and Consultant Cardiologist for the Cardiac Risk in the Young Sports Cardiology clinic at St George’s Hospital. As one of the leading Sports Cardiologist in the UK, Professor Sharma is the Cardiologist for the English Institute of Sport, British Rugby League and the British Lawn Tennis Association. In addition, Professor Sharma leads the Cardiac Risk in the Young screening program, which is the largest of its kind in the UK and is responsible for screening athletes from most GB National athletic squads. Professor Sharma’s has an international reputation in cardiovascular adaptation in athletes, sudden cardiac death in the young and heart muscle diseases and has published over 400 scientific articles including original papers in highly rated peer reviewed journals.

Sean Alexander Bankier's research is focused upon understanding how common genetic variation can be linked to disease with the use of multi-omic datasets and causal inference. At UiB, he works on the NFR funded project; Intelligent systems for personalized and precise risk prediction and diagnosis of non-communicable diseases (INTRePID). This project aims to create computer methods for risk prediction and diagnosis of non-communicable diseases using multi-omics data, by developing, implementing, and validating novel algorithms for structure learning and inference in large-scale, multi-organ causal Bayesian gene networks with applications in cardiovascular medicine. 

Thijs Eijsvogels is trained in exercise physiology at the Radboud University (PhD degree, NL), Hartford Hospital (postdoc, USA) and Liverpool John Moores University (postdoc, UK). Thijs is interested in the physiological and cardiac responses of the human body to acute and chronic (endurance) exercise performance. His research is focused on the benefits and potential deleterious effects of exercise across the whole spectrum of physical activity: from sedentary behavior to excessive volumes of exercise. Thijs’ work combines the fields of physiology, cardiology and epidemiology and studies are performed in the general population, cardiovascular patients, and athletes. His goal is to find the ultimate exercise prescription for cardiovascular health improvement. More information about his research group can be found here

Dr Omland is Professor of Medicine at the University of Oslo, Norway, and Consultant Cardiologist at Akershus University Hospital. His research interests include cardiovascular biomarkers of subclinical myocardial injury and dysfunction, risk stratification of patients with cardiovascular disease, and prevention of cardiac injury and dysfunction in patients receiving cancer therapy. Dr Omland has authored more than 300 scientific papers, concerning cardiovascular disease, including articles in Circulation, JAMA, The Lancet, and The New England Journal of Medicine and is ranked among the top 15 World Experts in Muscle Proteins by expertscape. He is currently serving as an Associate Editor of Circulation.

Trine MohoIdt is a physiotherapist and researcher in the field of cardiovascular and metabolic health. She received her master’s degree in Human Movement Science in 2001 and PhD in Clinical Medicine in 2010, both from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Dr Moholdt is the Head of the Exercise, Cardiometabolic Health and Reproduction Research Group at the Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging, NTNU. Her current research focus is exercise training as a therapeutic tool for preventing and treating cardiometabolic diseases, with a special focus on lifestyle interventions that benefit both mother and child.

Professor Yannis Pitsiladis has an established history of research into the importance of lifestyle and genetics for human health and performance. Current research priority is the application of “omics” (i.e., genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics) to the detection of drugs in sport with particular reference to recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEpo), blood doping and testosterone.

His most recent research is funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), he is a member of the IOC Medical and Scientific Commission, a member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the Scientific Commission of the International Sports Medicine Federation (FIMS), a member of the Scientific and Education Commission of the European Federation of Sports Medicine Associations (EFSMA), a member of WADA’s Health Medical Research Committee (HMRC), past member a WADA’s List Expert Group and is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). He has published over 230 scientific papers, written and edited a number of books and has featured in numerous documentaries and popular books.

Dr. Ellingsen founded the Laboratory of Cellular Cardiology, NTNU in 1996 and is a collaborating partner of the Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG). His research focus has been to identify cellular mechanisms of beneficial effects of exercise in cardiovascular disease, and to translate them into better programs for prevention and rehabilitation. He is the Principal Investigator of the SMARTEX Study on interval training in heart failure patients and is involved in the HUNT survey of physical activity, aerobic capacity, and endothelial function in Nord-Trøndelag County, Norway. He has been involved in scientific research on biomedical effects of meditation since 2006.