William J. McKenna

Emeritus Professor of Cardiology - University College London Emeritus British Heart Foundation Chair of Molecular Cardiovascular Sciences Visiting Research Scientist - Universidade da Coruña Scientific Advisor – Health in Code, Spain General Medical Council Full registration 1985; Specialist Register Cardiology 1996 SELECTED HONOURS 1992 UK Cardiac Team of the Year - Hospital Doctor of the Year Awards. 1993 Fritz Acker Prize for Cardiovascular Research - German Cardiac Society 1997 The Laennec Lecture, American Heart Association ‘Prognostic assessment of patients with HCM’ 1998 The Presidents Lecture, Spanish Cardiac Society, ‘Identification and treatment of patients with HCM at risk of sudden death’ 1999 The John Keith Memorial Lecture, Canadian Cardiovascular Society ‘Clinical Implications arising from the Recent Molecular Genetic Advances in HCM’ 2007 Silver Medal of the European Society of Cardiology 2007 Honorary Fellowship – Royal College of Physicians of Ireland 2007 The Rene Laennec lecture, European Society of Cardiology ’The role of genetic testing in cardiomyopathy’ 2010 Robert L. Krakoff International Lectureship in Cardiovascular Medicine, Harvard Medical School ‘Diagnosis of ARVC’ and ‘Prevention of Sudden Death in the Young’ 2010 - 14 Founding President – UK Association for Inherited Cardiac Conditions 2010 - 18 Senior Investigator – UK National Institute for Health Research 2011 Stanley Davidson Endowed Lecture, RCPE – ‘Cardiomyopathies: The Expanding Role of Gene Testing’ 2012 University of Toronto, Distinguished Visiting Professor - HSRLCE Lecture ‘Arrhythmogenesis in Desmosomal Disease’ 2012 Honorary Fellowship - Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 2014 Stanley Davidson Endowed Lecture, RCPE – ‘Prevention of Sudden Death in the Young’ 2018 Libensky Gold Medal of the Czech Cardiac Society 2019 The John F. Goodwin Award 2019, ESC Working Group on Myocardial & Pericardial Diseases, La Coruña 2019 “The Sir William Harvey Oration” - The 7th International Cardiovascular Genomic Medicine Conference ‘Life long pursuit of Inherited Cardiovascular Conditions’ 2021 Henry N. Neufeld Keynote lecture – 67th Annual Conference of the Israel Heart Society, Tel- Aviv ‘Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy: insights and challenges for the clinician’ Professor McKenna’s main interests have been in clinical and basic research of the cardiomyopathies. His recent work has contributed to the identification of disease-causing genes in hypertrophic, dilated and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, to the establishment of new diagnostic criteria within the context of familial disease, and to the establishment of algorithms to identify patients at high risk of sudden death.