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Lars Lund is February’s featured Faculty Member of the Month. He has been a Member of the Cardiovascular Disorders Faculty since April 2015. Faculty Members (FMs) are acknowledged experts invited to recommend the articles that are included in F1000Prime. They review the articles, write brief comments, and score the articles.

Lars Lund is a cardiologist and heart failure specialist, he is currently the director of the mechanical circulatory support program, and associate professor at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. He did his medical training at Duke University and completed an internal medicine residency and heart failure fellowship training at Columbia University. He carried out his cardiology fellowship while at Karolinska University Hospital.

Can you tell us a little bit about your work?

My research focuses on pragmatic trials in the Swedish Heart Failure Registry and on better phenotyping of heart failure with preserved and mid-range ejection fraction. Ejection fraction is the amount of blood that leaves the heart whenever it contracts, mid-range ejection fraction is an indicator of heart failure. In my physiology lab, we look at the characteristics of heart failure based on normal and reduced ejection fraction. We also research peripheral hormones involved in heart failure and molecular aspects of contraction-relaxation in vitro.

What was your last recommendation and why did you pick it?

I recently selected an article by Nadruz et al. published in Circulation, which investigated the impact of BMI on accuracy of using natriuretic peptide measurements to predict outcomes in patients with chronic heart failure and reduced ejection fraction. I picked this because the role of BMI is increasingly recognized as confounding natriuretic peptide measurements and I also liked the trial design. As I noted in my recommendation people working in this area should be mindful of the weaker diagnostic accuracy and prognostic power of natriuretic peptides in patients with heart failure and obesity.

What do you like about working on F1000Prime?

The distinguished faculty means that when I read recommendations there I know that they are coming from leading experts in that particular field.

What would you say is the best piece of career advice that you received that you would like to pass on to early career researchers?

As you do well in your chosen field, you will get increasing opportunities and responsibilities and more and more work. Prioritize your work and do not procrastinate. It is not the work you do that wears you down, but the work you don’t get done.