Gina Larocca, MD, MHSc

Gina LaRocca, MD, MHSc is the Co-Director of Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging / Cardiac CT and Cardiac MRI.  She is the Fellowship Director of Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine in Cardiology at Mount Sinai’s Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute and the Marie Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Cardiovascular Health.  She is also Associate Professor of Radiology at Mount Sinai.  She has been a physician-scientist at the NIH since 2012.

Dr. LaRocca completed a rigorous five-year combined cardiology fellowship in pediatric and adult cardiology at the prestigious Columbia University Medical Center. The five years following, she was Assistant Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics and Radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College. She developed the first Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) program at Weill Cornell.  Dr. LaRocca was responsible for diagnosing and treating adult patients with complex congenital heart disease and became the liaison between adult and pediatric cardiology.
In 2012, Dr. LaRocca joined the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a physician-scientist and an advanced cardiovascular imaging fellow in MRI and CTA. Her cutting-edge cardiac MRI research lead to a publication in 2014 in the Journal of Cardiac MRI entitled: High Spatial and Temporal Resolution Retrospective Cardiac Cine MRI from Shortened Free Breathing Real-Time Acquisitions.  

During this time at the NIH, she had been privileged to work with outstanding scientists and was involved in extensive research in novel cardiovascular biomarkers.  She played a key role in the AGES-Reykjavik Study, a joint program between the Icelandic Heart Association and the NIH. Dr. LaRocca subsequently earned the prestigious NIH Intramural Research Curriculum Certificate with commendation. Her NIH research has been presented both nationally and internationally at the American Heart Association and European Society of Cardiology.

Dr. LaRocca received her Master’s degree in Health Sciences in Clinical Research at Duke University.  In May 2015 at Commencement exercises, she was recognized by the President of Duke and the Dean of the School of Medicine for her Master’s thesis in cardiovascular biomarkers.She played a key role in the AGES-Reykjavik Study, a joint program between the Icelandic Heart Association and the NIH. Dr. LaRocca subsequently earned the prestigious NIH Intramural Research Curriculum Certificate with commendation. Her NIH research has been presented both nationally and internationally at the American Heart Association and European Society of Cardiology.

In 2017, Dr. LaRocca presented her NIH research entitled ‘Fibrosis as Measured by the Biomarker, TIMP1, Predicts Mortality in AGES-Reykjavik Study’ as a prestigious Late Breaking Clinical Trial with simultaneous publication at the European Society of Cardiology. 

In 2019, Dr. LaRocca published in the world renown Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitled “Multipotent Fetal-derivedCdx2 cells from Placenta Regenerate the Heart’.
In 2022, Dr. LaRocca collaborated in a multi-center international publication entitled USA Patterns of Myocardial Injury on Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance in Patients with Coronavirus Disease-2019 and Suspected Cardiac Involvement
Dr. LaRocca has received awards in academic teaching at the University of Connecticut. She was chosen as outstanding Junior Faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College in 2011, one of twelve faculty awarded by the Chairman of Medicine.

She is a peer-reviewer for numerous medical journals. She is assistant editor to Hurst the Heart 50th Anniversary Edition; Editor of Journal of American College of Cardiology (JACC) Case Reports and Emerging Editorial Consultant for JACC Imaging. She is committee chair of the American Heart Association Council for Clinical Cardiology. In addition to board certification in Cardiovascular Medicine, Dr. LaRocca is also board certified and a Diplomat in Cardiac MRI, Cardiac CTA and Cardiac Echocardiography and Nuclear Cardiology.
In addition to her interest in CV imaging, Dr. LaRocca has a concentration in Sports Medicine in Cardiology.