Tom Verbelen, MD, PhD, is a cardiac surgeon at the University Hospitals of Leuven, Belgium. He graduated as an MD in 2009. He obtained his PhD in 2017 and was certificated as cardiac surgeon in 2018. Postgraduate study visits were performed in San Diego and Cleveland. His research in the lab focusses on mechanical support for the failing right ventricle and/or for respiratory failure in the context of pulmonary hypertension. In clinic, he regularly performs pulmonary endarterectomies for chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension and developed a minimal access technique for this. He also focusses on minimal invasive approaches for both aortic and mitral valve surgery. He is a board member of the European Society for Artificial Organs (ESAO) and of the Belgian Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (BACTS) as well as a member of the International CTEPH Association (ICA). Together with his colleague, Bart Meuris, he is the PI of the Avalus Clinical confidencE (ACE) registry that collects real-world data on the Avalus ™ and Avalus Ultra ™ valves across several European centres.