Summary
Dr Simon Gibbs is Emeritus Reader in Pulmonary Hypertension at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London.
Dr Gibbs trained in medicine at Christ’s College, Cambridge and St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School where he qualified in 1979. His MD thesis on the pulmonary circulation in heart failure was awarded in 1993 by the University of Cambridge for work undertaken at the National Heart Hospital with Professor Kim Fox and the late Professor Philip Poole-Wilson.
Dr Gibbs trained in cardiology in London and was appointed to NHLI in February 1997, after having served as a Consultant in Cardiology and General Medicine at Bromley Hospital and the Royal Brompton Hospital, London. At Hammersmith Hospital he developed and grew the Pulmonary Hypertension Service into a thriving clinical service focused on obtaining best outcomes for patients through high quality clinical research and audit.
The clinical research programme specifically focused on the failing right ventricle, developing end points for clinical trials in pulmonary hypertension, conducting in-house Phase II trials of novel agents for treating pulmonary arterial hypertension, and vasculopathy in sickle cell disease. Additional studies investigated the pulmonary circulation at high altitude both in the high alps and in a barochamber. This programme was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Medical Research Council and the National Institutes of Health (USA). It was conducted in collaboration with Professor Martin Wilkins in Clinical Pharmacology and colleagues in Europe and the USA.
Dr Gibbs was a member of a small group of clinicians who obtained national designation for the Hammersmith service and five other clinical services in England in 2001. He was Lead Clinician and honorary Consultant Cardiologist for the National Pulmonary Hypertension Service at Hammersmith Hospital until 2017, chaired the Physicians Committee of the Pulmonary Hypertension Service for the UK and Ireland for 3 years, was Lead Clinician for the National Audit of Pulmonary Hypertension for its first decade, chairman of its Project Board and its Pulmonary Hypertension Outcomes Group. He was a member of the NHS Clinical Reference Group for Pulmonary Hypertension. He hosted an annual international masterclass on pulmonary hypertension for ten years. In the past he was a member of the Department of Health External Reference Group on Standards in Adult Congenital Heart Disease, and the Chief Medical Officer’s independent expert working group on the prevention of venous thromboembolism in hospitalised patients.
He has participated in task forces at the World Symposia on Pulmonary Hypertension, UK, European and American guidelines task forces in pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary embolism, pregnancy in heart disease and emergency oxygen, international pulmonary hypertension clinical trial steering committees, data and safety monitoring boards and end points adjudication committees. He has also served as an Expert European Scientific Advisor to the European Medicines Agency, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the International Society of Mountain Medicine. He has made presentations to congresses and societies across the UK, Europe, North America and Asia.
Dr Gibbs is Past Chairman of the Working Group on the Pulmonary Circulation and Right Ventricle at the European Society of Cardiology, and was co-chairman of the left heart disease and pulmonary hypertension task force of the International Society of Heart & Lung Transplantation. He was elected a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology in 2009.
Publications
Journals
Afoke J, Mohal J, Kanaganayagam GS, et al. , 2023, Cardiopulmonary exercise testing augments watchful waiting in asymptomatic severe primary mitral regurgitation, Perfusion-uk, ISSN:0267-6591
Souza R, Badesch DB, Ghofrani HA, et al. , 2023, Effects of sotatercept on haemodynamics and right heart function: analysis of the STELLAR trial, European Respiratory Journal, Vol:62, ISSN:0903-1936
Hoeper MM, Badesch DB, Ghofrani HA, et al. , 2023, Phase 3 Trial of Sotatercept for Treatment of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, New England Journal of Medicine, Vol:388, ISSN:0028-4793, Pages:1478-1490
Aktaa S, Gale CP, Brida M, et al. , 2023, European Society of Cardiology quality indicators for the care and outcomes of adults with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Developed in collaboration with the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology, European Journal of Heart Failure, Vol:25, ISSN:1388-9842, Pages:469-477
Coghlan JG, Gaine S, Channick R, et al. , 2023, Early selexipag initiation and long-term outcomes: insights from randomised controlled trials in pulmonary arterial hypertension, Erj Open Research, Vol:9