Medical Director of the Leipzig Heart Center, and Head of the University Department of Cardiac Surgery at the Leipzig Heart Center
Prof. Michael Borger is the Medical Director of the Leipzig Heart Center and Head of the University Department of Cardiac Surgery at the Leipzig Heart Center, one of the largest cardiac surgery centers in Europe. He finished his cardiac surgery training and PhD in 2001 in Toronto, Canada. After completing a 1 year fellowship with Prof. Friedrich-Wilhelm Mohr at the Leipzig Heart Center in 2002, he took a position as Staff Cardiac Surgeon at the Toronto General Hospital and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto from 2002 to 2006 under the mentorship of Dr. Tirone David. In 2006, he returned to Germany as a Staff Surgeon at the Leipzig Heart Center. He became an adjunct Professor at the University of Leipzig in 2008 and was appointed as Assistant Director of the Leipzig Heart Center in 2009. In 2014, he became the Director of Aortic Surgery and the Director of the Cardiovascular Institute at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) in New York. He was also appointed the George H. Humphries Professor of Surgery at CUMC. In 2017, he returned to Leipzig to lead the cardiac surgery department at the Leipzig Heart Center.
Prof. Borger is an author on over 750 peer-reviewed publications. (H-Index: 97). He is the national or international Principal Investigator in several ongoing clinical research projects with notable peer-reviewed funding. Prof. Borger has been actively involved in mentoring of several early and advanced career researchers and clinicians. Furthermore, Prof. Borger is a member and part of the leadership of several cardiovascular societies, including EACTS, AATS, STS, ESC, DGK, DGTHG, and the Heart Valve Society, for which he was the inaugural President in 2014-15. He was also the International Director of the Board of the AATS, one of the most prestigious and academically productive cardiac surgery societies in the world, from 2021-24. Finally, he has been a member of the ESC Clinical Practice Guidelines committee since 2022. He was the Task Force Chair of the ESC 2023 Guidelines for the management of infective endocarditis and of the upcoming ESC/EACTS 2025 Valvular Heart Disease guidelines.