Our Lab Team

Meet the people of the Clinical Biomarker and Phenotype Core Laboratory

Francois Haddad, MD | Director

Dr. Francois Haddad is a clinical associate professor of medicine and the director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Biomarker and Phenotypic Core Laboratory whose mission is to identify the best biomarkers to detect, monitor, and manage cardiovascular disease. Dr. Haddad has over twelve years of practice in the field of cardiology and has a special interest in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction also known as diastolic heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, as well as systemic hypertension.

Yukari Koyabashi, MD

Bio

Dr. Yukari Kobayashi received her bachelor of pharmacy from Kyoto University and doctor of medicine from Osaka University in Japan. After completing her residency and general cardiology fellowship, she worked as an echocardiologist. Her primary area of interest is to evaluate myocardial function using advanced echocardiographic technique including 2D and 3D strain imaging. She has presented and published a number of abstracts and peer-reviewed papers in this area. Her current research interest is to assess diastolic dysfunction using advanced echocardiographic technique and circulating biomarkers in diabetes mellitus, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

Jeffrey Christle, PhD

Bio

Jeffrey Christle, PhD, CEP, is a clinical exercise physiologist (American College of Sports Medicine) in the division of CV medicine at Stanford University. A member of the Stanford Biomarker and Phenotyping Core Laboratory, he is also a member of the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease, Stanford Sports Cardiology, and the Stanford Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing Laboratory. Originally from Massachusetts, Dr. Christle is an active member of a number of domestic, European, and international exercise science and sports medicine organizations. His extensive background is in the areas of cardiopulmonary exercise testing, preventive and therapeutic exercise training, and CV health, especially in the framework of clinical trials and advanced cardiac disease. An important focus of his research has involved the clinical applications of exercise testing and training, including the optimization of exercise programming for the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular diseases, the physiological evaluation of cardiovascular adaptation to exercise, monitoring physiological response using wearable devices, and the influence of exercise on patients with severe cardiovascular disease.

Sara Bouajila‬, MD

Bio

Dr. Sara Bouajila received her medical degree from Paris Diderot University and completed her fellowship in cardiology at Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital in France. During her training she developed an interest in the study of spontaneous coronary artery dissections. Currently, as a visiting scholar in Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Biomarker and Phenotype Core Laboratory, she focuses on the effect of healthy aging on cardiovascular structure and function, and on the changes in cardiac and immune biomarkers with aging, to improve cardiovascular risk assessment. She is also interested in investigating the sex-differences in coronary physiology as well as exploring the link between microvascular dysfunction and left ventricular remodeling.

Arundhati Das, MD

Bio

Dr. Arundhati Das received her medical degree from Trivandrum Medical College, which is affiliated to Kerala University, India, and did her internship in Medical College Hospital, Trivandrum. Subsequently, she did her postgraduate training in cardiology in Kolkata, India, at the Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, and worked for many years in non-invasive cardiology, with special interest in both adult and pediatric echocardiography. She moved to the U.S. two years back and is now working as a research assistant in the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Biomarker and Phenotypic Core Laboratory. Her areas of interest include diastology, cardiomyopathies, and pulmonary hypertension. Her hobbies are music, reading, knitting, and movies.

David Vuijk

Bio

David Vuijk is currently an MD student at Leiden University, Netherlands, and is completing his graduate thesis in multimodality screening and exercise. He has particular interest in cardiology and sports medicine and is working in the laboratory to further investigate exercise imaging and cardiopulmonary exercise testing.

Kegan Moneghetti, MBBS (hons) FRACP

Bio

Dr. Kegan Moneghetti is a cardiologist with imaging subspecialty. He completed his medical degree at Monash University and cardiology training through the Royal Australian College of Physicians at St. Vincent and Alfred Hospitals in Melbourne, Australia. He subsequently undertook a noninvasive cardiovascular imaging fellowship with specific training in echocardiography, exercise testing, and cardiac CT. He has a specific interest the way biomarkers, specifically exercise and cardiac imaging, can help discriminate disease. His current research projects are trying to define inflammasome pathways with exercise and optimize the use of demographic data to predict exercise performance in healthy individuals and those with heart failure.

Myriam Amsallem, MD, PhD

Bio

Dr. Myriam Amsallem, a cardiologist specialized in cardiac imaging, completed her training in Paris VII University, France. She has an interest in heart failure, cardioimmunology and early detection of pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure using imaging and circulating biomarkers. She is currently working on studies at Stanford University with Marie Lannelongue Hospital (French reference center for Pulmonary Hypertension, France) on studies on right heart remodeling with the goal of understanding the influence of inflammation and finding early biomarkers of remodeling. She also has a special interest in educational projects to improve the quality of imaging methodology.

Kalyani Boralkar, MD

Bio

Dr. Kalyani Anil Boralkar received her medical degree from Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, India, and completed her internship at Government Medical College and Hospital, Aurangabad, India, before moving to the U.S. in 2015. She joined Stanford Cardiovascular Institute as a visiting scholar and is currently working as a research assistant in the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Biomarker and Phenotypic Core Laboratory. Her areas of interest include risk stratification and outcomes in heart failure preserved ejection fraction and renal denervation treatment for hypertension. She is actively involved in building databases, patient recruitment, and helping build manuals of operation for the laboratory. Outside of work, she is interested in Indian classical music and loves to cook.