Profile: Prof Karen Sliwa

Prof. Karen Sliwa is the Director of the Cape Heart Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town- a translational cardiovascular research Institute with 8 distinct research groups. 

She is on a joint appointment as senior cardiologist working at the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Groote Schuur Hospital, University of Cape Town and at UCT Private Academic Hospital. Her special areas of expertise are heart failure, structural heart diseases such as cardiomyopathy and cardiac disease in pregnancy. 

Prof. Sliwa is widely recognised as a world expert in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), with a special interest in reducing mortality in women with cardiac disease in maternity. She has contributed to better understanding on the pathophysiology, treatment options and awareness of peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM), a global disease particularly prevalent in African populations.  Her and her collaborators’ work led to a disease-specific therapy for PPCM. She led and still leads several African and global research projects, which have had a major impact for creating knowledge about CVDs common in Africa and other Lower-to-Middle income regions, leading to changes in policy. Her considerable experience in setting up simple, cost-effective registries and web-based data entry platforms have had a major impact on cardiovascular health and has facilitated the training of physicians from African and beyond. 

She holds numerous awards such as the German Cardiac Society Paul Morawitz Award for Exceptional Cardiovascular Research (2013), a Honorary Doctorate University Diderot-Sorbonne, Paris, France (2017), European Cardiac Society Geoffrey Rose Award for Population Sciences (2019) and the South African Medical Research Council Gold award (2021) and the University of Cape Town Alan Pifer Award for Research Excellence ( 2023). Prof. Sliwa has been named the most prolific cardiovascular researcher from Africa with more than 480 publications and her work is highly cited (H-index 110;>150 000 citations). 

Over her distinguished career she has served in many notable roles, including chair of the South African Heart Failure Association (HeFSSA), President of the South African Heart Association (2014-2016), President of the World Heart Federation (2019-2020) and currently Board Member and Treasurer of the Pan African Society of Cardiology ( 2021-2025).