Bart Bijnens

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)

Engineering Sciences

MSc in Electronic Engineering and PhD in Medical Sciences (1997, KU Leuven, Belgium). Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Imaging and Cardiac Dynamics at the Faculty of Medicine in Leuven (1998-2004). He supervised clinical research at St. George's Hospital in London (2005-2006). In 2007, he was resident Visiting Professor at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. Since Sept. 2008, he is an ICREA Research Professor at the Department of Information and Communication Technologies of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.


Research interests

Translational Cardiovascular Pathophysiology, focussing on assessing cardiac function and understanding and recognising the changes induced by disease and how treatment strategies can be used to modulate this remodelling. This is approached by integrating information handling and processing techniques, combined with basic knowledge on cardiovascular pathophysiology in order to advance clinical sciences. This implies defining the research approach from the basic understanding of the disease towards the clinical study; selecting/designing the appropriate investigational tools to assess the relevant clinical parameters; quantifying the diagnostic information (from clinical information to imaging data) to extract the most pertinent information and interpreting the results and relate them to the pathophysiological knowledge.

Selected publications

– Driessen MM, Hui W, Bijnens BH, Dragulescu A, Mertens L, Meijboom FJ & Friedberg MK 2016, ‘Adverse ventricular-ventricular interactions in right ventricular pressure load: Insights from pediatric pulmonary hypertension versus stenosis’, Physiol Rep.4.

– Sanz-de la Garza M, Grazioli G, Bijnens B, Sarvari SI, Guasch E, Pajuelo C, Brotons D, Subirats E, Brugada R, Roca E & Sitges M 2016, ‘Acute Exercise Dose-Dependent Impairment in Atrial Performance During an Endurance Race’, JACC Cardiovasc Imaging, 9:1380-1388.

– Weidemann F, Maier SK, Störk S, Brunner T, Liu D, Hu K, Seydelmann N, Schneider A, Becher J, Canan-Kühl S, Blaschke D, Bijnens B, Ertl G, Wanner C & Nordbeck P 2016, ‘Usefulness of an Implantable Loop Recorder to Detect Arrhythmias in Patients With Advanced Fabry Cardiomyopathy’, Am J Cardiol. 118:264-274.

– Gaudron PD, Liu D, Scholz F, Hu K, Florescu C, Herrmann S, Bijnens B, Ertl G, Störk S & Weidemann F 2016, ‘The septal bulge–an early echocardiographic sign in hypertensive heart disease’, J Am Soc Hypertens. 10:70-80.

– Sanz de la Garza M, Grazioli G, Bijnens BH, Pajuelo C, Brotons D, Subirats E, Brugada R, Roca E & Sitges M 2016, ‘Inter-individual variability in right ventricle adaptation after an endurance race’, Eur J Prev Cardiol. 23:1114-1124.

– Seydelmann N, Liu D, Krämer J, Drechsler C, Hu K, Nordbeck P, Schneider A, Störk S, Bijnens B, Ertl G, Wanner C & Weidemann F 2016, ‘High-Sensitivity Troponin: A Clinical Blood Biomarker for Staging Cardiomyopathy in Fabry Disease’, J Am Heart Assoc. 5:e002839.

– Cruz-Lemini M, Crispi F, Valenzuela-Alcaraz B, Figueras F, Sitges M, Bijnens B & Gratacós E 2016, ‘Fetal cardiovascular remodeling persists at 6 months in infants with intrauterine growth restriction’, Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol. 48:349-356.

– Gabrielli L, Bijnens B, Brambila C, Duchateau N, Marin J, Sitges-Serra I, Mont L, Brugada J & Sitges M 2016, ‘Differential atrial performance at rest and exercise in athletes’, Scand J Med Sci Sports. 26:1444-1454.