CERC
Cardiomyopathy Education and Research Center

Aims of CERC

The Cardiomyopathy Education and Research Center (CERC) was founded to foster an educational environment in the medical community for close interaction concerning rare myocardial disease, such as amyloidosis, sarcoidosis and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The specific aims of CERC is to

1. Promote social and academic interactions among cardiologists for proper diagnosis and management of rare myocardial diseases.
2. Enhance excellence in research and education of rare myocardial diseases both clinically and also, in basic research.
3. Organize annual scientific meetings regarding these diseases.
4. Interact other international authorities in rare myocardial diseases for educational and research activities.

Brief History of CERC

Dae-Won Sohn, who first initiated the ASH (amyloidosis, sarcoidosis and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) conference in October 2017, aimed to bring medical specialists together for a hot discussion on rare myocardial diseases. These diseases are occasionally encountered in tertiary hospitals, may not be too rare but sometimes very difficult to diagnose. The purpose of the ASH conference was to bring these perplexing cases together and share each other’s experience on these diseases. A vibrant mixture of not only cardiologists but also geneticists and pathologists brought up not only answers to the cases but more importantly, further questions at the 1st ASH conference.

These requests from the medical society spearheaded a more organized movement towards an establishment of a corporation that would maintain the educational atmosphere in these diseases. Thus the main purpose of CERC is two-folds. The first objective is to educate medical specialists in rare myocardial disease by debate and discussion between each other and also by sharing each other’s experience. This educational objective is also accomplished by invitation of authorities from abroad. The second objective is to bring up important clinical questions regarding amyloidosis, sarcoidosis and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and to provide answers to these clinical questions that could only be done with collaborative research. Since these diseases are not commonly encountered, these answers could only be provided by multicenter registries or trials.

Organization of CERC

The CERC is arranged into 5 separate committees, the name and the person in charge of which is listed below.

• (Committee of Clinical Myocardial Research) Dae-Won Sohn
• (Committee of Cardiovascular Imaging Research) Yong-Jin Kim
• (Committee of Multimodality Collaborative Research) Jae-Kwan Song
• (Committee of Academic Affairs) Hyung-Kwan Kim
• (Committee of Cardiomyopathy Education) Jong-Won Ha

In addition, the CERC has a separate administrative team that supports the whole CERC as well as the 5 committees of the CERC.