Rate My Professor Ajay Shah

Professor Ajay Shah serves as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at King’s College London, holding the British Heart Foundation Chair of Cardiology and the James Black Professorship of Medicine. He is Director of the King’s BHF Centre of Research Excellence and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at King’s College Hospital. Shah trained in medicine and cardiology at the University of Wales, obtaining his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1982 and Doctor of Medicine in 1989. He undertook doctoral research training in Wales and Belgium, followed by postdoctoral research as a scientist at the National Institutes of Health in the USA in the early 1990s. Before his appointment to the Chair of Cardiology at King’s College London in 1998, he held the position of Medical Research Council Senior Clinical Fellow in Cardiff. Fully trained and accredited in Cardiovascular Medicine and General Internal Medicine, Shah has extensive clinical experience in adult invasive and non-invasive cardiology, including emergency cardiology, percutaneous coronary intervention, acute coronary care, and heart failure management. He possesses expertise in invasive haemodynamics, left ventricular pressure-volume analyses, diastolic function assessment, and coronary flow and pressure measurements.

The Shah laboratory investigates the pathophysiology of heart failure in experimental models and patients, with seminal studies on NADPH oxidase (NOX) proteins and redox signalling pathways in the cardiovascular system. Additional research encompasses nitric oxide actions in the heart, human studies on neuronal NO synthase (nNOS), heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), and heart failure heterogeneity. Shah has authored approximately 350 peer-reviewed papers, achieving an h-index of 98 and over 38,000 citations. His work has established an internationally leading unit advancing cardiovascular research from bench to bedside. Recognized with fellowships from the Academy of Medical Sciences (2003), American Heart Association (2001), International Society for Heart Research (2010), Royal College of Physicians (1998), and International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences (2002), he also serves as Associate Editor for the American Journal of Physiology (Heart and Circulatory Physiology), Consulting Editor for Cardiovascular Research, and on editorial boards for Circulation, the European Heart Journal, and the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology. Shah has supervised 23 PhD theses, directed BHF PhD studentship programmes since 2004, and contributes to scientific committees such as the Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands.