Stephan Ensminger, MD, DPhil is a Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Head of the Department of Cardiac and Thoracic Vascular Surgery at the University of Lübeck, Germany. Dr. Ensminger graduated from the University of Würzburg Medical School in 1996 and received a D.Phil. in Transplantation Immunology from the University of Oxford, U.K. in 2000. He obtained his cardiothoracic surgery training at the Universities of Tuebingen, Erlangen-Nürnberg and the Heart and Diabetes Center NRW at Bad Oeynhausen, Germany, one of Europe's largest institutions. His basic science interests are Transplantation Immunology with the main focus on the immunobiology of cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV). Clinical interest include MCS, minimally invasive AV-valve repair, aortic valve repair and ROSS, OPCAB/MIDCAB and catheter based valve therapies.