During the visiting elective, Dr. Naser met Dr. Pislaru, who mentored her in a research project. “I had no research experience whatsoever. But watching how the team worked together to answer a question relevant to patient care — from data collection and analysis to interpretation of the results and publishing the manuscript—made me really eager to become part of the process of learning and contributing to the science and improving patient outcomes. This is when I decided to return to Mayo Clinic for a year of research training in the echocardiography lab with Dr. Pislaru after completing medical school. I learned research techniques and skills from scratch, with his guidance and support.” 

Focused on the heart

Dr. Naser’s research has focused on advancing the knowledge of the incidence, risk factors, outcomes, and management strategies for valvular heart disease and heart failure. It is for this research that Dr. Naser received the 2024 Mayo Clinic Alumni Association Donald C. Balfour Award for Meritorious Research.

She is particularly interested in functional tricuspid regurgitation, diastolic dysfunction and a relatively recently recognized type of mitral regurgitation — atrial functional mitral regurgitation and how atrial fibrillation interacts with these diseases.

Dr. Naser also started, designed, and carried out multiple research projects that have received prestigious awards and national recognition and been published or accepted in leading cardiology journals, including the European Heart Journal and JACC. She has published 34 peer-reviewed papers, including 27 as first author, and has another eight under review. She has had 34 abstract presentations at national and international meetings.

A future in AI

Dr. Naser is pursuing a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare at Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

"I’ve been extremely lucky to have such supportive mentors at Mayo. My other mentors in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine include Barry Borlaug, M.D. (CV ’06), Patricia Pellikka, M.D. (MED ’83, I ’86, CV ’89), the Betty Knight Scripps–George M. Gura, Jr., M.D., Professor of Cardiovascular Diseases Clinical Research, Vuyisile Nkomo, M.D. (I ’97, CV ’01), Hector Michelena, M.D. (CVAD ’06), Grace Lin, M.D. (I ’03, CV ’07) and biostatistician Christopher Scott. I’ve learned so much from them all. The statistics programmer, Austin Kennedy, has been an invaluable member of the research team as well, helping us obtain pertinent data from the cardiovascular data marts. On the artificial intelligence side, Itzhak Zachi Attia, Ph.D. (CV ’14), Peter Noseworthy, M.D. (CV ’13), Garvan Kane, M.D., Ph.D. (I ’01, CV ’04, CPHAR ’04, CV ’07) and Eunjung Lee — with whom I co-developed an AI echo view classifier — have been instrumental in my career."

The AI echo view classifier resulted from applying AI deep learning techniques — specifically convolutional neural networks — to echocardiographic views. The classifier can automatically identify specific views of interest from full echocardiographic exams, constituting the building blocks that allow for the application of neural networks to echocardiography on a large scale and omitting the need to manually go through a remarkable number of studies to identify pertinent views. The new tool is being used in multiple ongoing AI-based projects to train deep learning algorithms directly on raw echocardiographic images to detect diseases including reduced ejection fraction and aortic stenosis.

Dr. Pislaru says Dr. Naser’s work on the incidence and natural history of atriogenic mitral regurgitation and functional tricuspid regurgitation are landmark studies with major implications for the clinical practice." Dr. Pellikka also agrees about Dr. Naser’s promise. “She has had a remarkable ability to identify knowledge gaps in the literature relating directly to patient care and to critically define hypotheses and design full studies to address relevant questions. She was a finalist at the American Society of Echocardiography Young Investigator Award competition for her fully initiated and executed project on the incidence, risk factors, and outcomes of atrial functional mitral regurgitation in atrial fibrillation or sinus rhythm. This competition is intense, and it was a great honor for Dr. Naser and Mayo Clinic."