Advanced Heart Failure Transplant Cardiology (AHFTC) Fellows

Dr. Ekpo is a native of Chicago and began his career as a critical care nurse in the Medical ICU and Surgical/Cardiovascular ICU after earning his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from North Park University. He later completed a second Bachelor of Science in Biology at Northeastern Illinois University, followed by his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He then completed his Internal Medicine Residency at Stanford University and his General Cardiology Fellowship at Scripps Clinic. Growing up in the Chicago Housing Projects, Dr. Ekpo witnessed firsthand the profound impact of healthcare disparities on marginalized communities, which instilled a deep commitment to addressing systemic barriers to quality care for underserved and underrepresented populations. Dr. Ekpo is also completing fellowship training in Integrative Medicine through the Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine, focusing on evidence-based lifestyle interventions for cardiovascular disease management. His interests include women’s health and healthcare disparities, and he aspires to lead a career at the intersection of academic cardiology, health policy, and community-centered innovation.

Bruna Gomes, MD, is a cardiologist and physician‑scientist whose work bridges advanced imaging, genetics, and artificial intelligence. She earned her medical degree from the University of Coimbra (Portugal, 2008-2014 and completed her internal‑medicine and cardiology training at Heidelberg University Hospital (Germany, 2014‑2021), gaining extensive experience in echocardiography, interventional cardiology, cardiac MRI, and heart‑failure care. Motivated by unanswered questions in structural heart disease, Dr Gomes expanded her quantitative skill set to include biostatistics, deep‑learning computer vision, and large‑scale bioinformatics. Since 2021 she has been a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Euan Ashley’s lab at Stanford University, where she leads projects that combine whole‑genome sequencing, multimodal imaging, and machine‑learning phenotyping. Her work has appeared in Nature Genetics and The New England Journal of Medicine and is supported by the German Research Foundation and the American Heart Association.

Dr Gomes will continue her clinical training in Stanford’s Advanced Heart Failure & Transplant Fellowship (starting July 2025) with the long‑term goal of integrating precision‑omics insights into bedside care—advancing individualized diagnostics and therapies for patients with heart failure. Outside the lab, she plays piano, composes music, guards the net on the soccer pitch, and occasionally swaps reality for virtual‑reality gaming.