Professor Ya-Ling Han

Figure 1. Professor Ya-Ling Han Professor Ya-Ling Han (Figure 1), a famous cardiologist in China, was born in Wuhan, Hubei province, in 1953. She graduated from Harbin Medical University in 1978. After getting her doctorate in 1994 from Shanghai Second Military Medical University, professor Han worked as the director and professor of the Department of Cardiology. She then worked as the vice president at Shenyang Northern Hospital since 1997. For the past two decades, she has been persistently leading the development of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) technique for complex coronary lesions and high risk patients. From 1998 to 1999 she received PCI Fellow training in Singapore National Heart Center for professional enhancement. Professor Han is a leading expert in the field of interventional therapy of coronary heart disease in China, especially in critical acute myocardial infarction, elderly coronary heart disease patients concomitant with multiple organ dysfunction, left main, chronic total occlusive and multivessel coronary diseases. In the past 20 years, professor Han and her colleagues have performed more than 30,000 cardiovascular interventional procedures with a successful rate over 99%. During the same period, many new techniques in coronary intervention have been established, including ‘improved tiny crush stent technology’ and ‘multi-wire plaque crushing technology’, etc. In addition, Professor Han has made contributions in improving PCI adjunctive pharmacology. She is the first to propose high dose clopidogrel, triple antiplatelet therapy and individualized antiplatelet strategy, which had been referenced and recommended by foreign expert and international conferences. Professor Han was in charge of many clinical studies such as the CREATE study, a 5-year large scale multicenter “real world” clinical study on efficacy and safety of domestic biodegradable DES in China, through which she found that 12-month dual antiplatelet was not inferior to 6-month treatment. The findings of the many clinical studies led by Professor Han have been published in leading international cardiology journals and contribute to the current management of coronary heart disease. Although an accomplished cardiovascular clinician who dedicated most of her energy and time on the diagnosis and treatment of her patients, Professor Han also committed to basic research of cardiology. She and her colleagues have investigated the biological role of CREG against vascular restenosis and atherosclerotic inflammation after PCI, which provide innovative insights into the early prevention of these diseases, the role and molecular mechanisms of CREG during embryonic blood vessel formation, and the regulation of CREG gene on iPS cell-based cardiogenesis. Professor Han, together with her colleagues, has obtained funding from Natural Science Foundation of China for 8 times, and one of which was the key project of national natural science funding. Professor Han have published over 400 research papers both in national and international journals. Professor Han now is the adjunct professors and doctoral