About this Research Topic

Background

Women in Cardiac Electrophysiology 2022

Less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women!

Long-standing biases and gender stereotypes have discouraged women from pursuing a career in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research. Science and gender equality are, however, essential to ensure sustainable development as highlighted by United Nations.
Gender Equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a progressive society. However, Women in Science are often underrepresented and unacknowledged. On the path to defeating stereotypes, women researchers are working towards answering some of the most important questions in Science.

The coronavirus outbreak has worsened the existing inequalities for women across every sphere, including research. In spite of the odds, women researchers continue to prove pivotal to several crucial scientific advances.

Cardiac electrophysiology (EP) has one of the lowest representations of women within medicine. This underrepresentation may be due to a variety of factors including lack of female role models, perceived “old boys club” culture or discrimination.
Recent analyses of the Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Database revealed that on average annually between 2013 and 2019, only 5% of the 3524 EP operators were women. A 137% increase in the total number of AF ablationists was observed over this period. Yet, the proportion of women remained unchanged (Howell et al., Heart Rhythm 2022).
Despite these barriers, there has been a steady stream of females as scientific, clinical and editorial leaders.

The Women in Cardiac Electrophysiology: 2022 Research Topic offers a platform to showcase women’s impact in the field, together with their resilience to grow and support their achievements. This Research Topic aims to highlight the work led and achieved by women in the field of Cardiac Electrophysiology. Submissions covering any area of cardiac electrophysiology research are welcome and those covering the following themes are encouraged:

1 Computational Electrophysiology – Modelling and Artificial Intelligence
2 Clinical mapping and ablation
3 Molecular/cellular basis of cardiac arrhythmias
4 Image and signal processing for multiscale analysis of cardiac arrhythmias
5 Molecular mechanisms of cardiac function in health and disease

For more information on the description and formats of the different article types please see here


We strongly encourage the submission of manuscripts where the lead/last or corresponding author identifies as female, and we recommend early career researchers to team up with senior female colleagues. Co-authors can be of any gender.
This Research Topic is part of the Women in Physiology series. Other titles in this series are:

Women in Developmental Physiology: 2022
Women in Avian Physiology: 2022
Women in Exercise Physiology: 2021
Women in Gastrointestinal Sciences: 2021
Women in Integrative Physiology: 2021
Women in Clinical and Translational Physiology: 2021
Women in Invertebrate Physiology: 2021

Please submit your article to the Research Topic that best suits the focus of your research.

As per Frontier’s commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) Publishers Compact, we use our platform to help inform, develop, and inspire action that aligns with the 17 UN SDGs. This topic supports SDG 5 Gender Equality.

Dr Meo is employed by EPD Solutions, a Philips company as a research scientist. She is specialized in cardiac signal processing and electrophysiology. She has not any conflicts of interest to declare.

Dr Fenske is junior research group leader at the Institute of Pharmacology at LMU Munich. Her group investigates the physiological and pathophysiological function of various ion channels in the heart and in particular in the sinus node. In addition, her group is working on the development of gene therapy approaches for the treatment of cardiac diseases. For her work, she has received the "Promotion of Women Scientists" grant from the German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), which promotes gender equality. She has not any conflicts of interest to declare.

Dr Chowdhury is an independent research fellow and group leader at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. Her research area is to investigate the links between electrogram morphology, local cellular activity and architectural determinants of electrical propagation. Her work involves using biological and computational methodology to solve the inverse problem of determining cellular and tissue abnormalities from the electrogram. She has not any conflicts of interest to declare.

Keywords: cardiac electrophysiology, heart rate, heart, ventricle, signalling, monitor, variability, female researcher, #CollectionSeries

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