Patron

The official patron of the Competence Network for Congenital Heart Defects and the National Register for Congenital Heart Defects is Friede Springer, who explains her commitment as follows: “I am firmly convinced that this institution is of great importance to medical research, on the grounds of its uniqueness and high level of expertise in the field of congenital heart defects.” The deputy chair of the supervisory board of the publishing house Axel Springer Verlag AG, who is also the chief executive of its subsidiary Axel Springer Gesellschaft für Publizistik, has supported the establishment of a register of patients with congenital heart defects at the German Heart Institute Berlin since 1998. It was on her initiative that the Axel Springer Foundation donated initial funding for setting up the German national register.