Affiliation: Helios Klinikum Erfurt, Germany, Department of General and Interventional Cardiology; Charité Medical University Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Department of Cardiology

Prof. Dr. med Alexander Lauten is Head of the Department of General and Interventional Cardiology at Helios Klinikum Erfurt and Professor of Structural Interventions and an interventional cardiologist at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, Germany. He is a board-certified specialist in Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and Intensive Care Medicine and a senior interventional cardiologist with many years of expertise in valvular heart diseases. He was the Head of the Valvular Heart Diseases and Interventions Program at the Jena University Hospital and later Head of the Catheterization Laboratory at the Department of Cardiology at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, Germany.

Prof. Lauten's clinical and interventional expertise encompasses the entire spectrum of transcatheter therapies for structural heart diseases, especially valvular heart diseases (TAVI, MitraClip, Cardioband, heterotopic caval valve implantation, PFO/ASD closure devices etc.). His research focuses on clinical and experimental studies for the interventional treatment of valvular heart diseases. He is the winner of several national and international awards (Innovations Award of the German Ministry of Research and Education, Publication Award of the German Society of Cardiology 2011, Best Poster Award at TCT 2009, Moderated Poster Award ESC 2012, Poster Award in Valvular Heart Diseases at ACC 2012, among others). Prof. Lauten is an inventor and coauthor of several books and more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in the field of interventional cardiology and valvular heart diseases.