Personal Statement
Professor Lip, MD, is Price-Evans Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine, at the University of Liverpool, UK – and was Director of the Liverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital (2019-2026). He is also Distinguished Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark; and Adjunct Professor at Seoul National University and Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. He also holds Visiting or Honorary Professorships in various other Universities in UK, Serbia (Belgrade), China (Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou), Thailand (Chiangmai, Mahidol) and Taiwan (Taipei).

Half of his time is spent as a clinical cardiologist, including outpatient clinics (leading atrial fibrillation and hypertension specialist services) and acute cardiology.

Professor Lip has had a major interest into the epidemiology of atrial fibrillation (AF), as well as the pathophysiology of thromboembolism in this arrhythmia. Furthermore, he has been researching stroke and bleeding risk factors, and improvements in clinical risk stratification. The CHA2DS2-VASc and HAS-BLED scores - for assessing stroke and bleeding risk, respectively – were first proposed and independently validated following his research, and are now incorporated into international guidelines.
The ABC (Atrial fibrillation Better Care) pathway proposed by him is the core recommendation in the 2020 European AF guidelines, and has been shown to reduce adverse outcomes in AF patients.

In 2014, Professor Lip was ranked by Expertscape as the world's leading expert in the understanding and treatment of AF [http://bit.ly/2apB1Dt], a position still maintained in 2026 (https://bit.ly/3eP3qR4).

Professor Lip was on the writing committee for various international guidelines, including chairing the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) Antithrombotic Therapy Guidelines for Atrial Fibrillation, as well as various guidelines and/or position statements from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), Asia-Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS) etc.

Professor Lip has acted as senior/section editor for major international textbooks and at senior editorial level for major international journals, including Thrombosis & Haemostasis (Editor-in-Chief, Clinical Studies); Europace (Associate Editor); and Circulation (Guest Editor).

His current group’s research interests are broad, ranging from epidemiology to pathophysiology, translational research, clinical risk assessment and trajectories of risk, patient management pathways, and applied health research. He is passionate about using ‘big data’ and epidemiological observations to generate hypotheses and to inform clinical studies that help improve the management of common cardiovascular conditions, such as atrial fibrillation, hypertension and thrombosis. This ‘big data’ work is often in collaboration with an extensive global network of friends and collaborators, including those in Denmark, France, the Balkans, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, sharing a common goal in ‘research without boundaries’ in relation to epidemiology and clinical studies.

Professor Lip has been conferred a number of honorary doctorate degrees - doctor medicinae honoris causa from Aalborg University, Denmark (http://bit.ly/2fGyIfC) see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9qj1geikPo; University of Medicine & Pharmacy “Carol Davila”, Bucharest, Romania (http://bit.ly/2CVadVP) ; Belgrade University, Serbia; and i'Universite de Tours, France (http://bit.ly/2I3VyeH). Also, in 2020: Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland (Doctor Honoris Causa); and University of Modena, Italy (https://youtu.be/iBkungOafaM).

Research Overview
I was Director (2019-2026) of the Liverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Science (LCCS), which is a research centre of excellence for the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital. The LCCS mission statement is “Supporting the citizens of the Liverpool City Region to live healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke" and I have brought together a multidisciplinary group of academic (clinical/non-clinical) and NHS researchers into a truly cross-university, cross-department collaboration (‘research without boundaries’). The 5-year vision for LCCS to April 2025: “By 2025, LCCS will have improved cardiovascular disease and stroke outcomes, and transformed the strategic landscape for research & innovation, education and service in cardiovascular disease for Cheshire and Merseyside”

My own research work has delivered crucial impacts in changing national and international clinical practice guidelines and improvements in patient care within three principal areas: (i) treatment decisions related to stroke and bleeding risk in atrial fibrillation (AF), which is the commonest cardiac arrhythmia in the general population, (ii) screening practice in primary care, and (iii) stroke and bleeding risk assessment. These ultimately lead to reduced morbidity and mortality for a significant proportion of the population, particularly among the elderly.
I am recognised as having a global track record in AF research (https://expertscape.com/ex/atrial+fibrillation).

With regard to clinical management, clinical risk scores developed and validated by my work to assess stroke & bleeding risk in AF (ie. CHA2DS2-VASc & HAS-BLED) are used in national/international management guidelines, My development of SAMe-TT2R2 score (2013) aids decision-making between warfarin and new anticoagulants. This score is incorporated into ESC/NICE consensus recommendations, as well as AF patient pathways streamlining decision making (the ‘Birmingham 3-step’ AF pathway, 2016).
My ABC (Atrial fibrillation Better Care) pathway (2017/PMID:28960189) was first developed with stakeholder engagement (including patients, primary care, secondary care) and shown to reduce mortality/ hospitalisation/adverse outcomes (PMID:30551910, 30659810). The ABC Pathway is now recommended in international guidelines from European Society of Cardiology (PMID:32860505) and Asia-Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (PMID: 34773920).

Other recent health services research work in AF have included the analysis of NHS costs related to AF screening (PMID: 35138372) and projecting AF-related healthcare costs to the NHS (PMID: 35138372), as well as AF patient pathway mapping and stakeholder engagement (eg. PMID: 35999563, PMID: 36550397) and mixed methods (PMID: 35253141).

My other work has investigated incident AF risks (C2HEST score, identifying high risk patients for screening (PMID:31234697); used novel methodologies - machine learning (PMID:30615112) and mHealth/Apps: Huawei Heart Study and mAFA trial (PMID:31487545). We have recently completed the Supermarket/Hypermarket Opportunistic Screening for Atrial Fibrillation (SHOPS-AF) project in Liverpool (PMID: 35455694).

I am currently chief investigator for the Liverpool Heart And bRain Project (L-HARP) investigating the stroke-heart syndrome, given the high incident cardiovascular event rates in patients presenting with stroke (PMID: 35502192); also, the Liverpool-Huawei Stroke Study investigating smartwearables for AF detection post-stroke (PMID: 36493841).

I also have track record in translational research, hence providing an interface for early phase clinical studies and translational studies, well aligned with our successfully funded £5.3m Liverpool NIHR Clinical Research Facility (I am cardiovascular theme co-lead) and the AlderHey Children's NIHR CRF. I have designed and led multicentre multinational Phase II and III clinical trials and global registries, as PI or steering committee.