Profile
Dr Shohreh Honarbakhsh is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology within the Centre of Clinical Pharmacology and Precision Medicine at the William Harvey Research Institute and an Electrophysiology Consultant at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Barts Heart Centre. She has clinical and academic expertise in the mapping and ablation of complex atrial arrhythmias. Her work integrates translational research, procedural innovation, and digital health entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on persistent atrial fibrillation.
Dr Honarbakhsh completed her medical degree at Imperial College London in 2009 along with an intercalated BSc in Cardiovascular Sciences. She obtained two distinctions and the Faculty of Medicine prize for her overall performance in the final medical examinations. She completed her PhD in Cardiology at Queen Mary University of London in 2019 where she developed a novel mapping technology to guide catheter ablation in persistent atrial fibrillation. Her work resulted in two young investigator awards at the Heart Rhythm Society and Heart Rhythm Congress. Her work also resulted in the invention of the STAR (Stochastic Trajectory Analysis of Ranked signals), mapping system, and she is a co-founder of Rhythm AI Ltd. She completed her Cardiology specialist training at North Central-East Thames Deanery and obtained her Certificate of Completion of training in 2021.
She obtained the highly prestigious British Heart Foundation Intermediate Clinical Research Fellowship in 2022 and was appointed as a Senior Clinical Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London and Cardiology and Electrophysiology Consultant at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Barts Heart Centre. She has published extensively in the field of electrophysiology particularly atrial fibrillation. She has also presented extensively both nationally and internationally and been a panelist at numerous conferences. She is the atrial fibrillation lead at Barts Heart Centre and has led service innovations in atrial fibrillation care, including a multidisciplinary complex AF/AT service, secondary prevention AF clinic focused on modifiable risk factors, joint electrophysiology and heart failure service and establishment of a quality-of-life assessment platform for patients undergoing atrial fibrillation ablation. She is also passionate about teaching and has obtained her Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice.
Her research interest includes mechanistic research in atrial fibrillation and evaluation and establishment of novel ablation strategies for atrial fibrillation.
Prizes and awards
- Best Sudden Cardiac Death Abstract 2019, ECAS Congress, Marseille
- Abstract selected for prestigious “innovation set to ignite the field of EP” session, Heart Rhythm Society Scientific Sessions, 2019
- Heart Rhythm Society Young Investigator Winner 2018, Heart Rhythm Society Scientific Sessions, Boston, USA
- Heart Rhythm Congress Young Investigator Winner 2017, British Heart Rhythm Congress, UK
- Faculty of Medicine Prize- Awarded for overall performance in Finals (top 5), Imperial College London, 2009
Research
Dr Shohreh Honarbakhsh is a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Centre for Clinical Pharmacology and Precision Medicine.
Her research focuses on understanding the remodeling processes in atrial fibrillation and how these processes trigger and drive atrial fibrillation. She is utilising these findings to establish and evaluate personalised ablation strategies for atrial fibrillation with the goal to enhance the success rate of catheter ablation procedures for atrial fibrillation.
She has published extensively in the field of electrophysiology, particularly atrial fibrillation. Her academic portfolio includes over 80 PubMed-indexed publications of which a majority are first author original research publications. She has also presented extensively both nationally and internationally and been a panelist at numerous conferences. Her PhD research led to the development of STAR (Stochastic Trajectory Analysis of Ranked signals), a novel signal analysis method for identifying drivers of persistent atrial fibrillation. This work led to the first-in-human clinical applications and multiple publications. She co-founded Rhythm AI Ltd in 2018, who secured over 2.2 million in venture capital. Through Rhythm AI Ltd, the STAR mapping method has been developed into a mapping system that is currently being evaluated internationally. She also obtained the prestigious Heart Rhythm Society Young Investigator award for her PhD research.
She obtained the highly prestigious British Heart Foundation Intermediate Clinical Fellowship in 2022 to evaluate the remodeling characteristics in atrial fibrillation and evaluate personalised ablation strategies in atrial fibrillation. She has since obtained further research grants to fund a PhD fellowship, Post doctoral fellowship, clinical trials and research nurse salary.
Sponsors
Current
- BHF Intermediate Clinical Fellowship 2022
Previous
- BHF Project Grant 2016-2019
Collaborators
Internal
- Dr Caroline Roney (Queen Mary University of London)
- Professor Patsy Munroe (Queen Mary University of London)
External
- Dr John Silberbauer (Sussex Cardiac Centre in Brighton)
Teaching
Her commitment to education includes teaching roles at Imperial College London and Queen Mary University of London, regional training programs, and public engagement initiatives supporting under-represented student groups. She is the educational supervisor for three Specialist Trainees at Barts Heart Centre. She has also supervised two post-CCT fellows during their post graduate fellowship. She is currently the 1st supervisor for a PhD student and 2nd supervisor for two PhD students. She has also obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from Queen Mary University of London.
Postgraduate Education:
- Second supervisor to two PhD students.
- First supervisor to 1 PhD student.
External Education Activities:
- Educational supervisor to two postgraduate specialist trainees. Academic supervisor for 1 Academic Clinical Fellow.
- Academic supervisor for two post CCT, post graduate research fellows.
- Academic mentor to a allied healthcare professional. Teaching for arrhythmia nurses on AF management. Teaching to postgraduate specialist trainees on practical procedures and ablation strategies in AF.