George D. Dangas, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Columbia University Medical Center
George D. Dangas, MD, PhD, is associate professor of medicine and director of postgraduate training, interventional cardiology fellowship program at the center for interventional vascular therapy (CIVT) of the division of cardiology at Columbia University Medical Center, as well as director of academic affairs and investigational pharmacology at the cardiovascular research foundation. Dr. Dangas specializes in cardiovascular diagnosis and treatment with a special interest in interventional, non-surgical options. He is board certified in cardiovascular disease, interventional cardiology and endovascular therapy.
Dr. Dangas has served on the board of trustees of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) as well as chair of the American College of Cardiology Annual Interventional Symposium (ACCIS) Program committee. He has been elected to the distinction of fellow of many national and international professional organizations including AHA, ACC, ACCP, ACP-ASIM, ESC and SCA&I. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), as well as an editorial consultant-reviewer for many scientific journals including Circulation, Stroke, Journal of Endovascular Therapy, American Journal of Cardiology, American Heart Journal, et al.
He was previously a clinical professor of medicine at New York University in New York City and assistant clinical professor of medicine at George Washington University, Washington, DC. Dr. Dangas completed his medical and postgraduate studies at the National Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Miriam Hospital & Brown University in Providence, RI, and his cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology fellowships at The Mount Sinai Hospital & Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City.
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Prakash Deedwania, MD
Professor of Medicine University of California
San Francisco School of Medicine
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Richard B. Devereux, MD
Professor of Medicine
Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Richard B. Devereux, MD, is a professor of medicine at Cornell University Medical College and director of the echocardiography laboratory. He also serves as an attending physician at the New York Hospital.
Dr. Devereux earned his BA at Yale University, and his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residencies in internal medicine at New York and Memorial Hospitals in New York City. He was a fellow in cardiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and as a research fellow in the southeastern Pennsylvania affiliate of the American Heart Association. Awarded with an Army Commendation Medal, Dr. Devereux served as a major in the medical corps of the United States Army and as a cardiologist on the internal medicine service of the United States Army Hospital in Heidelberg, Germany.
Dr. Devereux serves on the editorial boards of numerous publications including The American Journal of Hypertension, The American Journal of Cardiology, and The American Journal of Geriatric Cardiology.
A frequent invited lecturer and guest speaker, Dr. Devereux is the author of nearly 400 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, as well as several chapters and abstracts. He is a past director of the American Society of Echocardiography and a past president of the New York Society of Echocardiography.
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Nabil El-Sherif, MD
Professor of Medicine and Physiology
State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn
Nabil El-Sherif, MD, is a professor of medicine and physiology at the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn. He is the director of the clinical cardiac electrophysiology program at the health science center, and chief of the division of cardiology at the Brooklyn VA Medical Center.
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Keith C. Ferdinand, MD
Professor of Clinical Pharmacology
Xavier University College of Pharmacy
Keith C. Ferdinand, MD, is a practicing clinical cardiologist, director of Heartbeats Life Center, and professor of clinical pharmacology at Xavier University in New Orleans. He is past president and chairman of the Physicians' Association of Louisiana, Inc., an independent physicians' association; past president and member of the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners; past president of the Orleans Division of the American Heart Association; and past chairman of the board of the Association of Black Cardiologists, Inc.
Dr. Ferdinand was a Telluride Scholar at Cornell University, prior to receiving his BA in biology from the University of New Orleans. He received his MD from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC, where he was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. His postgraduate training included an internship at the New Orleans US Public Health Hospital, a residency in internal medicine, and a fellowship in cardiology at New Orleans Louisiana State University Medical Center. He completed his cardiology training at Howard University Hospital.
Dr. Ferdinand is board-certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease. He is diplomat-certified in the subspecialty of nuclear cardiology, and an American Society of Hypertension-certified specialist in clinical hypertension. Dr. Ferdinand authored "New Approaches to Pharmacologic Treatment of Hypertension," a chapter in Cardiology Clinics: Annual Drug Therapy; and co-authored "Medical Management of Coronary Heart Disease in Blacks," in Cardiovascular Disease in Blacks.
Dr. Ferdinand's community work experience includes serving as principal investigator of the Healthy Heart Community Project, a cardiovascular-risk program targeting African-American and other high-risk populations. Healthy Heart is a nationally recognized model for community-based health screening and intervention. Dr. Ferdinand is the host and producer of "Health Issues 2000," a community cable talk show, and he previously produced a local radio talk show on health issues.
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James J. Ferguson, MD
Associate Director of Cardiology Research
St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital and Texas Heart Institute
James J. Ferguson, MD, attended Harvard College, graduating cum laude in biology in 1975. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979, and did his training in internal medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He spent a year as a hypertension fellow at the University of Michigan, and went on to do his cardiology training at Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Following his Cardiology Fellowship, Dr. Ferguson stayed on for a year as a member of the cardiology faculty at Beth Israel, and in 1987 he joined the faculty at the Texas Heart Institute. He currently is the Associate Director of Cardiology Research at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital and the Texas Heart Institute, assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Texas. He also serves as the associate director of the cardiology fellowship training program at St. Luke's Hospital.
Dr. Ferguson is fellow of the American College of Cardiology and is a member of the AHA Council on Clinical Cardiology. He is co-editor of Acute Coronary Syndromes and a member of the editorial review board for Circulation, Cor et Vasa, The Journal of Invasive Cardiology, and The Journal of Interventional Cardiology. He is section editor for research advances and book reviews for Circulation, and has recently been appointed editor-in-chief of The Texas Heart Institute Journal. He has numerous national and international invited lectures to his credit, and has published extensively on a variety of topics including antithrombotic and antiplatelet therapy, acute coronary syndromes, adjunct pharmacology for coronary intervention and major clinical trials.
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John M. Flack, MD, MPH
Professor of Internal Medicine
Wayne State University School of Medicine
John M. Flack, MD, MPH, currently serves as professor and associate chairman for academic affairs and chief quality officer in the department of internal medicine, director of the cardiovascular epidemiology and clinical applications program (CECA), and is former program director of the academic hospitalist program in the department of internal medicine at Wayne State University.
Dr. Flack also holds an appointment in the department of community medicine at Wayne State University. Before joining the faculty at WSU, Dr. Flack served as associate professor of surgery, medicine and public health sciences at Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, where he was associate director of the hypertension center and head of the epidemiology clinic hypertension. His research interest includes clinical trial design, implementation, and hypertension in African-Americans determinants of blood pressure responses to drug therapy and utilization of software-based approaches to support optimal clinical decision-making.
Dr. Flack earned his bachelor of science in chemistry from Langston University in 1978 and spent the ensuing ten years at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where he attended medical school, completed an internal medicine residency and chief medical residency. He was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society as a medical student.
Dr. Flack completed a National Institutes of Health fellowship in cardiovascular epidemiology/preventive cardiology and obtained a MPH in epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. After serving as an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, he served two and a half years as section chief of general and preventive medicine until he moved to his position at Bowman Gray School of Medicine.
The author of more than 118 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, Dr. Flack was selected as one of the "Best Doctors in America" in 1998 by Woodward/White, Inc and was recently named to the faculty of "1000 in Medicine." He also received the Distinguished Research Award in 1993 from the International Society of Hypertension in Blacks. He serves on several national advisory boards, including the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks (ISHIB) board where he currently serves as President. He is a manuscript reviewer for several prominent medical journals including the ABC Digest of Urban Cardiology, American Geriatric Society, Behavioral Medicine, Circulation, Ethnicity and Diseases, Hypertension, JAMA, Laboratory and Clinical Medicine and Preventive Medicine. Dr. Flack previously served as a special consultant to the metabolic and endocrinologic drug products FDA advisory committee. Dr. Flack was the recipient of the 1998 Daniel J. Savage Distinguished Research Award from the Association of Black Cardiologists. In addition he is a member of the health care quality effectiveness research study section at the Agency for Health Care Policy Research.
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Gregg C. Fonarow, MD
Professor of Medicine
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Gregg C. Fonarow, MD, serves as director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center and is the director of UCLA's Cardiology Fellowship Program. He earned his BS in biomedical science at the University of California at Riverside, and his MD at UCLA. His interests center on heart failure management and implementing treatment algorithms to improve clinical outcome. Dr. Fonarow has published a number of research studies and clinical trials in heart failure management. New therapies and management strategies for advanced heart failure and research into the pathophysiology of this disease are conducted at UCLA under his direction.
Dr. Fonarow authored the UCLA clinical practice guidelines for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis prevention and treatment, and unstable angina. He has also developed and successfully implemented a comprehensive atherosclerosis treatment program at the UCLA Medical Center (Cardiac Hospitalization Atherosclerosis Management Program: CHAMP).
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Keith A Fox, MB, ChB, FRCP, FESC, FMedSci
Professor of Cardiology
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Professor Keith Fox is Duke of Edinburgh professor of cardiology of the University of Edinburgh, head of medical and radiological sciences and consultant cardiologist in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.Professor Fox was a founding fellow and is on scientific committees of the European Society of Cardiology. In addition, he is a member of the council on basic science of the American Heart Association and was chairman of the program committee for the British Cardiac Society.
Professor Fox's major research interest is in the mechanisms and manifestations of acute coronary arterial disease, and the work extends from underlying biological mechanisms to in vitro and in vivo studies and clinical trials. He is the author of more than 340 scientific papers. He is chairman of the RITA-3 trial, co-chairman of the GRACE program (the largest multinational registry study in ACS) and co-chairman of the CURE, CHARISMA and ExTRACT studies in unstable angina/non-ST MI and trials other settings and a lead investigator for studies on novel anti-thrombins.
He is a member of the editorial boards for the journals Heart, European Heart Journal, Coronary Artery Disease, Evidence-based Cardiovascular Medicine, Cardiology in Practice, British Journal of Cardiology, Acute Coronary Syndromes as well as for the website Cardio.net and Theheart.org. His current areas of research include the inhibition of coronary thrombosis and the role of platelets and inflammation in acute coronary syndromes.
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J. Michael Gaziano, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Dr. Gaziano received is MD from Yale Medical School and his M.P.H from the Harvard School of Public Health and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. J. Michael Gaziano serves as Chief of the Division of Aging at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Director of Cardiovascular Epidemiology in the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital where he is the Principal Investigator of the Physicians' Health Study II (PHS II), a large-scale trial of vitamins E and C, Beta Carotene and multivitamins in the prevention of chronic disease. He is also a co-investigator on three other large-scale NIH funded trials (Women's Health Study, Women's Antioxidant Cardiovascular Disease Study and the Women's Health Initiative).
Dr. Gaziano also serves as the director of the Massachusetts Veteran's Epidemiology Research and Information Center (MAVERIC) at the Boston VA Healthcare System. MAVERIC is one of three national centers of epidemiology research funded by Veterans Affairs. Center research activity includes a portfolio of over 20 funded projects focusing on chronic disease epidemiology including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, pulmonary disease, hypertension, renal disease and mental health. The center also oversees activity in the Normative Aging Study, a longitudinal study that has followed a cohort of men for over 30 years. Dr. Gaziano is also the Director of the Boston Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC), which is part of the New England GRECC.
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Haralambos Gavras, MD
Professor of Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine
Haralambos Gavras, MD, is a professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and chief of the hypertension and atherosclerosis section at Boston Medical Center. He is also the director of an NIH-supported Specialized Center of Research in the Molecular Genetics of Hypertension.
A pioneer in the research of the renin-angiotensin system, he was the first to introduce ACE inhibition and angiotensin II blockade for the treatment of patients with hypertension, congestive heart failure, or both. Dr. Gavras has received the Novartis Award from the Council of High Blood Pressure Research of the American Heart Association in 2000 and the Franz Volhard Award of the International Society of Hypertension in 2004, as well as numerous other awards and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (Glasgow), past president of the American Society of Hypertension, past president of the Inter-American Society of Hypertension and past chairman of the Hypertension Council of the American Heart Association.
Dr, Gavras has been on the faculty of Boston University since 1975 and is the author of over 630 publications. He obtained his medical degree from Athens University School of Medicine, and his postgraduate training at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow as a British Council Scholar.
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Michael M. Givertz, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Michael M. Givertz, MD, is co-director of the cardiomyopathy and heart failure program at Brigham and Women's Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Givertz received his undergraduate degree in environmental studies from Brown University and MD from Harvard Medical School. He completed his training in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease and cardiac transplantation at Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research interests include mechanisms of secondary pulmonary hypertension, and novel tools to assess hemodynamics. Dr. Givertz also oversees a comprehensive clinical research program offering novel pharmacologic and device-based therapies to patients with heart failure. Dr. Givertz is a past research fellow of the American Heart Association and a current recipient of a career development award from the National Institutes of Health.
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C. Michael Gibson, MS, MD, FACC
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Harvard Medical School
C. Michael Gibson, MD, received his BS, MS and MD degrees from the University of Chicago. He was an intern, resident and chief resident at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He received his training as an interventional cardiologist and served as the director of the coronary care unit at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gibson then served as the chief of cardiology and director of interventional cardiology at the West Roxbury Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. While at the West Roxbury VA, he also served as an associate physician at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He then moved on to Allegheny General Hospital as vice chairman of medicine for clinical research and director of invasive cardiology. He subsequently relocated to the west coast and served as associate chief of cardiology, chief of interventional cardiology and director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Gibson has now returned to Harvard's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as a full time interventional cardiologist. He is associate chief of cardiology and director of academic affairs in the cardiovascular division. Until 2003, Dr. Gibson served as chief academic officer and director of core services at Harvard Clinical Research Institute (HCRI).
Dr. Gibson's work has largely focused on the development of the statistical and angiographic methods to investigate the pathophysiology of coronary artery disease and the efficacy of pharmacologic and device-based therapies for coronary artery disease. He directs the angiographic core laboratory for a wide variety of studies including acute MI studies, unstable angina studies, interventional trials, peripheral interventional trials, angiogenesis trials (VEGF), imaging modality studies, managed care analyses for HCFA and atherosclerosis regression trials such as the NIH-sponsored Harvard Atherosclerosis Reversibility Project (HARP). His work has been presented in over 450 manuscripts, abstracts, textbooks and textbook chapters.
Within the thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) study group, Dr. Gibson is a principle investigator of multiple international acute coronary syndrome trials within the TIMI study chairman's office and is director of the TIMI data coordinating center. Dr. Gibson has overseen the creation of the TIMI database that unifies data from over 15 years of 30 TIMI studies in greater than 75,000 patients enrolled at over 800 centers around the world. The TIMI data coordinating center enters data from international multicenter trials and registries involving up to 3,000 patients. The TIMI data coordinating center meets or exceeds the highest regulatory standards regarding double data entry, edit checks, query generation, dual authentication of personnel accessing the database and electronic security.
Dr. Gibson is also director of the TIMI angiographic core laboratory and invented the TIMI frame count (CTFC) in which the number of cineframes for dye to reach standardized distal landmarks is counted (an index of epicardial blood flow). Dr. Gibson also invented the TIMI myocardial perfusion grade (a measure of microvascular perfusion). The TIMI frame count and the TIMI myocardial perfusion grade are both multivariate predictors of two year mortality in acute MI and clinical outcomes following PCI and are now widely used both clinically and in the assessment of new reperfusion strategies. Dr. Gibson recently introduced the concepts of the angiographic risk score and the TIMI myocardial frame count.
Dr. Gibson is on the editorial board of Circulation, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Journal of Thrombosis and Thrombolysis and www.theheart.org. Dr. Gibson is editor in chief of www.clinicaltrialresults.org and www.timi.org which have had many millions of hits and slide downloads. As associate editor, he authors and edits the summaries of cardiovascular clinical trials at the American College of Cardiology's new website www.cardiosource.com. Over 800 trials are summarized there.
Dr. Gibson recently edited a new textbook, "Management Strategies in Interventional Cardiology" which is optimized for handheld devices. Dr. Gibson authors the chapter on primary angioplasty in randomized trials in cardiovascular disease published as a companion to Braunwald's Heart Disease. He co-authors the chapter “Recognition and Management of Patients with Stable Angina Pectoris in Braunwald and Goldman's Primary Cardiology and co-authors the chapter "Quantitative Coronary Arteriography" in Topol's textbook of Interventional Cardiology. He is lead author of the section on myocardial perfusion imaging in a new imaging textbook which is a companion to Braunwald's Heart Disease.
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Thomas Giles, MD
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Nieca Goldberg, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
New York University School of Medicine
Nieca Goldberg, MD, is a cardiologist and a nationally recognized pioneer in women's heart health and her New York City practice Total Heart Care is focused primarily to care for women. Dr. Goldberg is the author of the award winning and highly acclaimed book Women Are Not Small Men: Life-Saving Strategies For Preventing And Healing Heart Disease published by Ballantine Books, and she is the national spokesperson for the American Heart Association's "Go Red" campaign. Currently she is the chief of women's cardiac care at Lenox Hill Hospital and holds the positions of co-medical director of the 92nd Street Y's cardiac rehabilitation center and an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine.
Dr. Goldberg received a BA degree from Barnard College and her MD from the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn. She completed her medical residency at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center and a cardiology fellowship at SUNY Downstate.
Dr. Goldberg, an American Heart Association volunteer for over more than ten years, and currently serves as a board member of the American Heart Association in New York City.
Dr. Goldberg's research and publications are concerned with exercise, exercise imaging and cardiovascular disease in women. Her work has been of considerable interest to the media. She has appeared many times on The Today Show as well as The View, Good Morning America, The Early Show, and CBS Nightly News. In addition she has been featured and interviewed by reporters from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New York Post, The New York Daily News, Fitness Magazine, More, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, and many others discussing women and heart disease. She serves on the Women's Day editorial advisory board. In New York Magazine's "Best Doctors" issue of 1999, Dr. Goldberg was the only woman in their top ten "Hall of Fame of Physicians." She returned to New York Magazine's "Best Doctors" list in 2000 and 2001 and most recently in 2004. In January 2005 Dr. Goldberg will be on the back of over 3 million boxes of Wheat Chex and Multi-Bran Chex cereal in an effort to educate the public about the lifestyle changes necessary for helping to prevent heart disease.
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Antonio M. Gotto, MD
Professor of Medicine Cornell University
Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College
New York, New York
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Christopher B. Granger, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center
Dr. Chris Granger is an associate professor of medicine and director of the cardiac care unit at Duke University Medical Center.
Dr. Granger received his BA and graduated cum laude from Middlebury College in 1980. He received his MD from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 1984. He continued his medical training at the University of Colorado, where he completed an internship and residency in internal medicine. He received the House staff teaching award and served as chief resident. Dr. Granger then proceeded to Duke University where he completed his fellowship in cardiology in 1990, when he joined the faculty staff in the division of cardiology. Dr. Granger is a diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine as well as being Cardiovascular Board Certified. Dr. Granger is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and of the European Society of Cardiology.
His primary research interest is in conduct and methodology of large randomized clinical trials in heart disease. His major contributions have been in trials involving acute ischemic heart disease and heart failure. This includes coordination of the Duke Clinical Research Institutes' activities in the ASSENT-4, OASIS-5 and 6 and ACTIVE trials evaluating treatments for acute myocardial infarction, acute coronary syndromes and atrial fibrillation. He is co-chairman of the APEX-AMI trial studying an inhibitor of complement to reduce mortality. He serves on the executive committee of the CHARM trial that studied an angiotensin receptor blocker in chronic heart failure, and ongoing CHARM activities include chairing the genetics substudy and the long-term follow-up study.
Dr. Granger has served on the steering committees of GUSTO I, II, III and IV, PARAGON, HERO-2, ASSENT-2, ASSENT-3, ASSENT-3 Plus, ASSENT-4, CARDINAL, SYMPHONY, ACTIVE, MICHELANGELO, CHARM and APEX-AMI studies. He also is a member of the GRACE and CATCH registry and the GENECARD steering committees. He directed a large project addressing proteomics, gene expression and metabolomics of coronary heart disease. He has served on numerous data safety monitoring boards.
His government-sponsored research activities include the DCRI cardiovascular CERT research center, the BARI 2D trial, and the National Human Genome Research Institute Comparative Approach to Genomics of Complex Traits, for which he serves as a consultant. He recently co-chaired NHLBI working groups on clinical proteomics and cell-based therapies for cardiovascular disease.
Based on his research, Dr. Granger has contributed a total of over 300 articles, abstracts, book chapters and invited publications. He currently serves as associate editor for the American Heart Journal and is on the editorial board of the European Heart Journal.
Cindy Grines, MD
Vice Chairman of Academic Affairs
William Beaumont Hospital Royal Oak, Michigan
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Robert A. Harrington, MD
Director of Cardiovascular Clinical Trials
Department of Cardiology
Duke University Clinical Research Institute
Robert A. Harrington, MD, received his undergraduate degree in English from the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA. He attended Dartmouth Medical School and received his medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine in 1986. He was an intern, resident and the chief medical resident in internal medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. He was a fellow in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center, where he received training in interventional cardiology and research training in the Duke Databank for Cardiovascular Diseases. He joined the Duke faculty in the division of cardiology in 1993, where he is currently a professor of medicine and an interventional cardiologist.
Dr. Harrington is a faculty member in the Duke Clinical Research Institute where he is the director of cardiovascular clinical trials. His research interests include evaluating antithrombotic therapies to treat acute ischemic heart disease and to minimize the acute complications of percutaneous coronary procedures; studying the mechanism of disease of the acute coronary syndromes; understanding the issues of risk stratification in the care of patients with acute ischemic coronary syndromes; and trying to better understand and improve upon the methodology of large clinical trials.
He has authored multiple peer-reviewed manuscripts, reviews, book chapters, and editorials. He co-edited the textbook Antiplatelet Therapy in Clinical Practice. He is an associate editor of The American Heart Journal. He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and of the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention. He is the program committee chairman for the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in 2006.
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James Hoekstra, MD
Professor and Chairman of Emergency Medicine
Wake Forest University
Dr. Hoekstra graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School, and was residency trained in emergency medicine at the University of Cincinnati. He was appointed to the faculty at Ohio State University from 1988-2003, where he was also associate dean for clinical education. He was recruited to Wake Forest University in January, 2003, where he is presently professor of emergency medicine and chairman of the department of emergency medicine.
His area of expertise is emergency cardiology, and the care of patients with acute coronary syndromes. He has done basic science research in cardiac resuscitation and is presently actively involved in clinical research on the diagnosis and management of patients with acute coronary syndromes. His research has included the ED use of serum markers of cardiac ischemia, short-stay protocols for the diagnosis of acute coronary syndromes and the use of glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors and low molecular weight heparin in the treatment of Non ST Elevation MI. He is an active member of the multicenter emergency medicine cardiac research and education group and serves on numerous multicenter trial steering committees. He is also on the board of directors of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.
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James L. Januzzi , MD
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Associate Director of the Coronary Care Unit,
Massachusetts General Hospital
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Peter H. Jones, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine
Peter H. Jones, MD, received his BS in chemistry at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and his MD with highest honors and as the DeBakey Scholar at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the Baylor-Affiliated Hospitals and as chief medical resident at Ben Taub General Hospital, both in Houston.
Dr. Jones is an associate professor in the department of medicine in the section of atherosclerosis and lipid research at the Baylor College of Medicine. He also serves as co-director of the lipid metabolism and atherosclerosis clinic and medical director of the weight management program for the Methodist Hospital Wellness Services, both in Houston.
A fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Council on Arteriosclerosis and Thrombosis of the American Heart Association, Dr. Jones is also a board member of and president-elect for the National Lipid Association.
Dr. Jones has published numerous clinical abstracts, articles, and textbook chapters and has delivered presentations at many national and international symposia on topics ranging from drug therapy for dyslipidemias and new frontiers in lipid drug therapy to diabetic dyslipidemia and coronary heart disease.
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Timothy Johnson, MD
Medical Editor
ABC News
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Stevo Julius, MD
Professor of Internal Medicine and Physiology
University of Michigan School of Medicine
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William B. Kannel, MD
Professor of Medicine and Public Health
Boston University School of Medicine
A professor of medicine and public health, William B. Kannel, MD, is also a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology and an honorary fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine. He has been active in the field of cardiovascular epidemiology for more than 40 years and associated with pioneering the Framingham Heart Study since its inception in 1949. In 1966, Dr. Kannel become Director, replacing Dr. Thomas R. Dawber, the original architect of the world famous study. He was also an attending physician at Boston University Medical Center and a member of the Evans Department of Medicine.
Dr. Kannel is also trained in public health as well as in internal medicine and clinical cardiology. He has been associated with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for over 35 years, and has had a long abiding interest in preventive cardiology for which he received the Dana Award in Preventive Medicine in 1972, the Dutch Einthoven Award in 1973, the Canadian Gairdner Award in 1976, the CIBA Award for Hypertension Research in 1981, the James D. Bruce Memorial Award of the American College of Physicians in 1982, and the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Health in 1986.
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Dean J. Kereiakes, M.D.
Professor of Clinical Medicine
Ohio State University
Dr. Chris Granger is an associate professor of medicine and director of the cardiac care unit at Duke University Medical Center.
Dr. Granger received his BA and graduated cum laude from Middlebury College in 1980. He received his MD from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 1984. He continued his medical training at the University of Colorado, where he completed an internship and residency in internal medicine. He received the House staff teaching award and served as chief resident. Dr. Granger then proceeded to Duke University where he completed his fellowship in cardiology in 1990, when he joined the faculty staff in the division of cardiology. Dr. Granger is a diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine as well as being Cardiovascular Board Certified. Dr. Granger is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and of the European Society of Cardiology.
His primary research interest is in conduct and methodology of large randomized clinical trials in heart disease. His major contributions have been in trials involving acute ischemic heart disease and heart failure. This includes coordination of the Duke Clinical Research Institutes' activities in the ASSENT-4, OASIS-5 and 6 and ACTIVE trials evaluating treatments for acute myocardial infarction, acute coronary syndromes and atrial fibrillation. He is co-chairman of the APEX-AMI trial studying an inhibitor of complement to reduce mortality. He serves on the executive committee of the CHARM trial that studied an angiotensin receptor blocker in chronic heart failure, and ongoing CHARM activities include chairing the genetics substudy and the long-term follow-up study.
Dr. Granger has served on the steering committees of GUSTO I, II, III and IV, PARAGON, HERO-2, ASSENT-2, ASSENT-3, ASSENT-3 Plus, ASSENT-4, CARDINAL, SYMPHONY, ACTIVE, MICHELANGELO, CHARM and APEX-AMI studies. He also is a member of the GRACE and CATCH registry and the GENECARD steering committees. He directed a large project addressing proteomics, gene expression and metabolomics of coronary heart disease. He has served on numerous data safety monitoring boards.
His government-sponsored research activities include the DCRI cardiovascular CERT research center, the BARI 2D trial, and the National Human Genome Research Institute Comparative Approach to Genomics of Complex Traits, for which he serves as a consultant. He recently co-chaired NHLBI working groups on clinical proteomics and cell-based therapies for cardiovascular disease.
Based on his research, Dr. Granger has contributed a total of over 300 articles, abstracts, book chapters and invited publications. He currently serves as associate editor for the American Heart Journal and is on the editorial board of the European Heart Journal.
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Michael Kim, MD
Director of the Coronary Care Unit at Mt. Sinai Medical Center
New York
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Allan L. Klein, MD
Director of Cardiovascular Imaging Research
Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Allan L. Klein, MD, is the director of cardiovascular imaging research and a staff cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, where he is also the course director for diastology and contrast echo and new technologies courses. He is board-certified in internal medicine and cardiology. His specialty interests include echocardiography, valvular heart disease, atrial fibrillation, pericardial diseases and cardiomyopathies.
A Canadian by birth, Dr. Klein speaks fluent French and English. He received his medical degree from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec after completing an undergraduate degree in microbiology and immunology, graduating with honors. Dr. Klein completed his clinical training at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. He received a cardiology fellowship from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and a research fellowship from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He was appointed to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 1989.
In addition to his scholarships and academic achievements, Dr. Klein won the E.G.D. Murray Prize in Microbiology and Immunology and was named as mentor for the nominees of the American Society of Echocardiography Research Finalist Award and for the ASE Fellowship Award.
Dr. Klein is a Fellow in the Council on Clinical Cardiology, the American College of Cardiology, and the Royal College of Physicians. In addition, he is a member of the, the American Society of Echocardiography, the American Medical Association and the American Heart Association.
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Marvin A. Konstam, MD
Professor of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
Marvin A. Konstam, MD, is the chief of cardiology at Tufts-New England Medical Center and a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, and did his post-graduate training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Womens' Hospital.
Dr. Konstam has worked extensively and is widely published in the areas of ventricular remodeling in heart failure, drug treatment for heart failure and strategies for improving quality of care. He was lead author and committee chair for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (presently AHRQ) clinical practice guideline on the care of patients with heart failure. He has recently served as a member of the cardiovascular and renal advisory panel of the Food and Drug Administration and has consulted for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in their programs for improving quality of care in heart failure. Dr. Konstam is a past president of the Heart Failure Society of America.
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Peter R. Kowey, MD
Professor of Medicine
Jefferson Medical College
Peter Kowey, MD, is a graduate of St. Joseph's University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. He completed his residency training in internal medicine at Penn State University and was a fellow in cardiovascular medicine and research at the Harvard University School of Public Health, the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the West Roxbury VA Hospital. After this training he joined the faculty at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, as director of the CCU and arrhythmia program, and rose to the rank of full professor. He went on to become chief of the division of cardiovascular diseases at the Lankenau Hospital Main Line Health System and is President of the Main Line Health Heart Center. He is also professor of medicine and clinical pharmacology at Jefferson Medical College. He also holds professorships at MCP/Hahnemann University.
Dr. Kowey is a fellow of several professional organizations including the clinical council of the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, the American College of Physicians, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the American College of Chest Physicians, and the American College of Clinical Pharmacology. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Arrhythmia Group and a charter member of the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. He has served on numerous committees for each of these organizations including program and abstract review committees for national and international programs. He spent nine years as a member of the Cardiorenal Drug Advisory Committee, four years on the Cardiovascular Devices Committee of the Food and Drug Administration, and is on the Expert Advisory Panel of the US Pharmacopeial convention.
Dr. Kowey's principal area of interest has been cardiac rhythm disturbances. He has been the recipient of over 100 grants and has authored or co-authored over 300 papers and scientific reports. He is the co-editor of the definitive textbook in his field, now in its second edition. He is a referee for manuscript review for 18 journals and an ad hoc grant reviewer for the VA system. While working with industry, he has pioneered the development of many antiarrhythmic drugs and antitachycardia devices that are used around the world for the treatment of patients with life-threatening cardiac rhythm problems. Dr. Kowey also maintains a busy consultative arrhythmia practice and has been recognized as a leader in his field in several publications.
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John H. Laragh, MD
Professor of Medicine
Weill Medical College of Cornell University
John H. Laragh, a physician scientist, is a professor of medicine and director of the cardiovascular center at New York Presbyterian's Weill Cornell Medical Center and was for 22 years concurrently, the chief of the division of cardiology.
Born and raised in Yonkers, New York, Dr. Laragh attended Cornell University and graduated from Cornell Medical College in 1948. He completed his residency training in Medicine and Cardiology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Presbyterian Hospital where he based his clinical and research activities, founding the first hypertension center.
Dr. Laragh is the author of over 900 papers including the two volume reference text, "Hypertension: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis and Treatment." Dr. Laragh has made scholarly contributions to a range of cardiovascular research and therapeutic questions on the causes and consequences of high blood pressure, the role of abnormal kidney and adrenal cortical function and the role of dietary sodium in hypertension and in heart failure and on the mechanism of action of renin-angiotensin, aldosterone, diuretics, beta blockers, angiotensin receptor blockers, and converting enzyme inhibitors in hypertension and related cardiovascular diseases. However, Dr. Laragh is best known for his discovery of the renin-angiotensin aldosterone hormonal system, for his descriptions of it as the major servocontrol for co-regulating normal blood pressure and body sodium content in human beings, and for his companion discovery that large excesses of plasma renin-angiotensin and aldosterone cause malignant hypertension and also cause the fatal arteriolar damage to the eyes, brain, heart and kidneys.
Among Dr. Laragh's honors are the 1969 Stouffer Prize of the High Blood Pressure Council of the American Heart Association, the Robert Tigerstedt Award of the American Society of Hypertension, the John Peters Award of the American Society of Nephrology, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cardiovascular Research, and the Distinguished Achievement Award of the American Heart Association CHBPR. He is the past president of the International Society of Hypertension and a past chairman of the Council for High Blood Pressure of the American Heart Association. In 1986, he founded the American Society of Hypertension, becoming its first president and founded the American Journal of Hypertension serving as its editor in chief.
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John C. LaRosa, MD
President and Professor of Medicine
State
University of New York Downstate Medical Center Brooklyn.
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James de Lemos, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
University of Texas Southwestern Medical School
James de Lemos, MD, is the director of the coronary care unit at Parkland Memorial Hospital and is an associate professor of medicine and the director of the cardiology fellowship at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He is a member of the thrombolysis in myocardial ischemia/infarction (TIMI) research group and the Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Research Center at UT Southwestern. His research interests include risk assessment and management of the acute coronary syndromes and acute myocardial infarction. He was recently the lead author of the Z phase of the A to Z study, an international trial investigating different cholesterol lowering strategies in patients with acute coronary syndromes. His other research interests include electrocardiography as a means of assessing the coronary microcirculation after thrombolysis or percutaneous coronary intervention and the use of novel biomarkers for prognostic assessment among patients with acute coronary syndromes.
Dr. de Lemos has worked extensively with novel biomarkers such as B-type natriuretic peptide, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, and soluble CD40 ligand. He graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center, where he also served as chief medical resident. He completed a fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and served on the faculty of the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School before moving to UT Southwestern Medical School.
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Glenn N. Levine, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine
Glenn N. Levine, MD, received his undergraduate training at Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences and obtained his MD at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was a resident and cardiology fellow at Boston Medical Center before joining the faculty at the Baylor College of Medicine.
Dr. Levine is currently associate professor of medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, and director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory and chief of cardiac critical care at the Houston VA Medical Center.
Dr. Levine's research focus has been on the utilization of novel pharmacotherapeutic agents, including anti-platelet and anticoagulant drugs, in the treatment of acute coronary syndromes and in persons undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention. He has participated in many of the landmark trials of the platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa receptor antagonists, low molecular weight heparins, and direct thrombin inhibitors, and lectures throughout the country on these topics. Dr. Levine has also been an active participant in cardiac catheterization laboratory-based studies of new and novel methods of coronary revascularization, including newer generation coronary stents, rotational atherectomy, distal protection devices, percutaneous myocardial revascularization (PMR) and angiogenesis ("gene therapy").
Dr. Levine has authored numerous papers and chapters on cardiovascular disease, and has written or edited seven books on pharmacotherapy and cardiovascular diseases. He served for five years as the program director for the Baylor-sponsored yearly educational course "Primary Care Providers Guide to Cardiology," serves on several American Heart Association councils, has been on the planning committee for the American Heart Association's yearly half-day program on interventional cardiology, and has been involved in numerous other educational programs and activities.
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Peter Libby, MD
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Peter Libby, MD, is the chief of cardiovascular medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He also serves as the Mallinckrodt professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He directs the D.W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center at Harvard.
Dr. Libby's current major research focus is the role of inflammation in vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his research accomplishments. His areas of clinical expertise include general and preventive cardiology. An extensive author and lecturer on cardiovascular medicine and atherosclerosis, Dr. Libby has published extensively in medical journals including Circulation, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The New England Journal of Medicine and Nature. He is an editor of Braunwald's Heart Disease. Dr. Libby also contributes the chapters on the pathogenesis, treatment and prevention of atherosclerosis to Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. He has held numerous visiting professorships and has been selected to deliver more than 40 named or keynote lectures throughout the world.
Dr. Libby is a member of the Association of American Physicians and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He has served in many roles as a volunteer for the American Heart Association, including chairmanship of several research committees and membership in the executive committees of the councils on arteriosclerosis, circulation and basic science. He has also served as a frequent consultant to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and has recently completed a 5-year term on the board of scientific councilors. He is the recipient of a MERIT award from the Institute.
Dr. Libby earned his medical degree at the University of California, San Diego and completed his training in internal medicine and cardiology at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (currently Brigham and Women's Hospital). He also holds an honorary MA from Harvard University.
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Michael Lincoff, MD
Vice Chairman
Cardiovascular Medicine Cleveland Clinic
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Lars Lindholm, MD
Professor and Chairman
Department of Public Health & Clinical Medicine
Umea University, Sweden
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Kenneth W. Mahaffey, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center
Kenneth W. Mahaffey, MD, received his BS in chemistry from Stanford University in 1985. He then attended the University of Washington School of Medicine for his medical training and received his MD degree in 1989. He was an intern, resident, and Chief Medical Resident at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center from 1989 to 1993. He completed a fellowship in cardiology at Duke University in 1996 and joined the faculty in the department of medicine, division of cardiology. He is currently an associate professor of medicine.
Dr. Mahaffey is also a faculty member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI). His primary research focus is the design and conduct of multicenter clinical trails and analyses of important clinical cardiac issues using large patient databases. Clinical research interests include the evaluation of new antiplatelet and antithrombin therapies in the management of the acute coronary syndromes (ACS), the study of agents to prevent reperfusion injury in acute myocardial infarction, the analysis of cardiac enzyme elevations in patients with acute coronary syndromes, the identification of risk factors for stroke in patients with acute coronary syndromes, and the study of thrombolysis-related intracranial hemorrhage. He has been the co-principal investigator for the AMISTAD and CARDINAL trials as well as principle investigator in numerous other trials. He has served on the steering or executive committees for several of the pivotal trials evaluating new therapies for ACS.
Dr. Mahaffey is also interested in the methodology of clinical trials. Current research activities include standardization of the definition of myocardial infarction used in clinical trials and the adjudication of suspected clinical endpoint events in large multicenter studies. He has developed efficient strategies to classify clinical endpoints and supervises the event adjudication effort at the DCRI. This group has been responsible for clinical event adjudication of over 25,000 endpoints including those in the GUSTO IIB, GUSTO III, PURSUIT, PARAGON B, MOST, CADILLAC, BRAVO, PRESTO and SADHART clinical investigations.
Dr. Mahaffey has authored and co-authored multiple peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and editorials. He is a member of the American College of Physicians, a fellow in the American College of Cardiology, and a clinical cardiology council member of the American Heart Association. He is a reviewer for The Journal of American College of Cardiology, The American Heart Journal, and The Journal of the American Medical Association, and he is an associate editor for Current Controlled Trials in Cardiovascular Medicine. He also serves as a vice-chair on the Duke Institutional Review Board (IRB).
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Alan S. Maisel, MD
Professor of Medicine, University of California
Director, Coronary Care & Heart Failure
VA Medical Center
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Barry J. Materson, MD
Professor of Medicine
University of Miami School of Medicine
Barry J. Materson, MD, received his undergraduate and medical training at the University of Miami and the majority of his specialty, internal medicine, and subspecialty, nephrology, training at Jackson Memorial Hospital and the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Miami. His early research was in measurement of glomerular filtration rate and the use of diuretic agents for treatment of edema in patients with decompensated hepatic cirrhosis. His interest in diuretics led to studies with new diuretic agents and their application to treatment of hypertension. This work provided a natural segue to the study of other antihypertensive agents. He had the opportunity to work closely with Drs. Eliseo Perez-Stable and Edward D. Freis and became involved with the Department of Veterans Affairs Cooperative Study Group on Antihypertensive Agents. He has contributed to the concepts of the use of lower doses of antihypertensive agents, particularly diuretics, captopril and atenolol, and individualization of antihypertensive drug therapy.
Dr. Materson has over 175 published papers and over 30 book chapters. He was appointed to the executive committee that developed and published the JNC-VII guidelines. He is a tenured professor of medicine at the University of Miami. Presentation of the results of his research and invited lectures has lead to extensive national and international travel.
After 28 years with the Miami VA Medical Center, most recently as associate chief of staff for education, he joined the department of business development at the University of Miami as medical director for managed care, University of Miami Medical Group. He was the medical director of UM Health Trust, the University of Miami's medical network, and was the medical director for UM Care, the University of Miami's self-insured health plan. In January 2003, he was appointed director of the self-insurance program and corporate representative of the University of Miami School of Medicine. He continues to be involved in research, teaching, administration, risk avoidance education, and patient care.
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Laura Mauri, MD
Chief Science Officer
Harvard Clinical Research Institute
Brigham & Women's Hospital
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Mary Ann McLaughlin, MD, MPH, FACC
Assistant Professor
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Mary Ann McLaughlin, MD received her medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine, as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. She completed her internship and residency at The New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center where she received the C. Richard Bowman award. She completed her fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and concomitantly completed her Masters in Public Health at Columbia University School of Public Health. Currently, she holds academic appointments in the departments of medicine (division of cardiology), health policy and geriatrics and adult development. She is the medical director of the cardiac health program, and co-founder of the Women's Cardiac Assessment and Risk Evaluation Program at the Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Dr. McLaughlin is the recipient of grants from the Agency for Health Care Quality and Research, the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the New York Academy of Medicine. Her research focuses on improving cardiovascular care for vulnerable populations including women, elderly and minority groups. She has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, authored several book chapters, and is on the editorial board of the publication Focus on Healthy Aging. She has been an invited speaker both nationally and internationally.
Since completion of her academic training, Dr. McLaughlin has been the recipient of numerous awards, including: the American College of Cardiology/Merck Fellowship Award, C. Richard Bowman Award, Mary and David Hoar Fellowship of the New York Academy of Medicine, SmithKline Beecham Development Partners Junior Faculty Award in Cardiology, and Arthur Ross Foundation Award.
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Jean C. McSweeney, PhD, RN
Professor of Nursing
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Jean C. McSweeney, PhD, RN, is a well published nurse scientist who has been investigating women's early warning and acute symptoms associated with coronary heart disease for the past 14 years. She received her doctoral education at the University of Texas at Austin and served on faculty there for four years, moving to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1994 where she is currently a professor in the College of Nursing.
Dr. McSweeney's research has been funded by a variety of agencies including the American Heart Association and the National Institute of Nursing Research. Her most recent findings published in Circulation about early warning symptoms women reported experiencing a month or more prior to myocardial infarction, has received international attention. Dr. McSweeney is past president of the Southern Nursing Research Society and is a fellow in both the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Nursing.
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Franz H. Messerli, MD
Clinical Professor of Medicine
Tulane University School of Medicine
Franz H. Messerli, MD is the director of clinical hypertension and is a staff member of the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans. He is also a clinical professor of medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans.
Dr. Messerli received his MD from the University of Bern Medical School. Dr. Messerli completed his internship and residency at the Department of Medicine, University Medical School in Bern. He completed a fellowship in cardiology at University Medical School in Bern, Switzerland, and did a hypertension cardiology research fellowship in Montreal at the Clinical Research Institute.
Dr. Messerli is the author or co-author of more than 500 publications, book chapters, etc. He has served on the cardiorenal advisory committee of the FDA and Joint National Committee (JNCVI). He serves on several editorial boards, and has received various awards and degrees for his scientific activity. He is a founding member of the Council on Geriatric Cardiology, a founding member of the American Society of Hypertension, an honorary member of the Southern African Hypertension Society, an honorary fellow of the Philippine College of Physicians; an honorary member of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology; and an honorary member of the Bulgarian Society of Cardiology.
David J. Moliterno, MD, FACC
Interventional Cardiologist
University of Kentucky
David J. Moliterno, MD is an interventional cardiologist at the University of Kentucky, where he joined faculty as chief of cardiovascular medicine approximately two years ago. He is the Jefferson M. Gill Professor of Cardiology, vice-chairman of internal medicine, and the medical director of the Gill Heart Institute at the UK. Prior to joining the University of Kentucky, Dr. Moliterno was an attending cardiologist for over 10 years at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Dr. Moliterno received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia and his internal medicine training from Vanderbilt University Hospitals. He completed a fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at The University of Texas.
Dr. Moliterno has received a number of patient-care awards, including the International-Physician-of-the-Year Award from the Cleveland Clinic. He is a life member in the National Directory of Who's Who and is listed in this year's The Best Doctors in A merica. Academically, Dr. Moliterno has been a national leader for several large studies including EPILOG, EPISTENT, PARAGON, GUSTO-III, SYMPHONY, TARGET and TENACITY. He has been an invited lecturer in over 20 countries, and has authored over 200 publications, including 35 textbook chapters. He presently serves on several journal editorial boards. In addition to being a long-standing fellow of the American College of Cardiology, he is a fellow of the European Society of Cardiology, the American College of Physicians, the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions and council member of the American Heart Association.
Dr. Moliterno has been actively involved with the ACC for many years. He has been on the editorial board of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology over the past four years. Nationally, Dr. Moliterno serves the American College of Cardiology as a board member on the strategic education directors committee. He also is a regional representative on the ACC Political Action Committee. At the state level, Dr. Moliterno has organized the Kentucky Chapter ACC annual meetings over the past two years. Dr. Moliterno is committed to representing and advancing the best interest of ACC members in the Commonwealth.
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David A. Morrow, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Dr. Morrow is an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate physician in the division of cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Morrow earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a Masters in Public Health with a concentration in clinical study design and interpretation from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed his medical residency and fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Dr. Morrow is an active investigator in the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction Study Group at Brigham and Women's Hospital with a research focus in the management of acute coronary syndromes. He is an internationally recognized expert in risk stratification in STEMI and NSTE ACS. He sits on the program committee of the American Heart Association Council on Clinical Cardiology and the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (NACB) Laboratory Medicine Practice Guidelines Committee on Biochemical Cardiac Markers for which he leads the clinical section on acute coronary syndromes. He is on the editorial boards of the American Heart Journal, Circulation, Clinical Chemistry and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. In addition to being a frequent lecturer, Dr. Morrow has more than 100 original scientific reports, reviews, editorials, book chapters and electronic publications in his areas of expertise.
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Arthur J. Moss, MD
Professor of Medicine
University of Rochester Medical Center
Arthur J. Moss, MD, is a professor of medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He is also the director of the heart research follow-up program at the medical center.
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Debabrata Mukherjee, MD, FACC
Interventional Cardiologist
University of Kentucky
Debabrata Mukherjee, MD is an interventional cardiologist at the University of Kentucky, where he joined faculty approximately one year ago. He is the Gill Foundation professor of cardiology, director of peripheral vascular interventions and associate director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at the Gill Heart Institute. Prior to joining the University of Kentucky, Dr. Mukherjee was an attending cardiologist at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Mukherjee received his medical degree from India and his internal medicine training at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Subsequently, he completed a fellowship in cardiovascular medicine and interventional cardiology also at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Dr. Mukherjee also earned a Master's Degree in clinical research at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Mukherjee has received a number of awards, including the American College of Cardiology Career Development Grant for hypertension and peripheral vascular disease, the Joseph Cash Memorial Award for excellence in health outcome research and the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center McKay Research Grant for peripheral arterial disease. He is also a member in the Marquis Directory of Who's Who. He has been an invited lecturer at several major national and international meetings and has authored over 120 publications, including 45 textbook chapters. He has also edited five textbooks on cardiology and vascular diseases. Dr. Mukherjee presently serves on several journal editorial boards, is a member of the American College of Cardiology Cardiac Catheterization and Intervention Committee and a member of the American College of Cardiology Innovations in Intervention Summit Advisory Work Group. In addition to being a long-standing fellow of the American College of Cardiology, Dr. Mukherjee is a fellow of the Society for Vascular Medicine & Biology and the International College of Angiology.
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Steven E. Nissen, MD
Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Steven E. Nissen, MD, received his medical degree from the University of Michigan School of Medicine in Ann Arbor. He completed his internal medicine internship and residency at the University of California, Davis in Sacramento and completed his cardiology fellowship at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington.
Dr. Nissen is the medical director of the Cleveland Clinic Cardiovascular Coordinating Center (C5), an organization that directs multicenter clinical trials. He has authored more than 250 journal articles, book chapters and CD-ROMs, mostly in the field of cardiovascular imaging. He was one of the pioneers in the development of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), and his research during the last decade has focused on this imaging technique. In particular, he has developed a methodology for application of IVUS in the assessment of the progression and regression of coronary atherosclerosis. Dr. Nissen is currently the principal investigator for several large IVUS atherosclerosis trials.
Dr. Nissen currently serves as president of the American College of Cardiology. He is also a member of the CardioRenal Advisory Panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
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Christopher O'Donnell, MD, MPH
Senior Advisor to the Director for Genome Research
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
Christopher O'Donnell, MD, MPH, received his undergraduate degree from Brown University, his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and his public health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed an internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he is currently on staff as a cardiologist and a faculty member of Harvard Medical School. In 1996, Dr. O'Donnell joined the Framingham Heart Study as a medical officer of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. In 2002, he was appointed associate director of the heart study and co-chair of its genetic steering committee. In 2006, he was named senior advisor to the director of NHLBI for genome research. His major research focus is on the genetic epidemiology of clinical and subclinical cardiovascular disease. He is the scientific director of a whole-genome association study underway in nearly 10,000 Framingham Heart Study participants, and he is director of numerous large-scale imaging studies using cardiac CT scanning and other subclinical atherosclerosis modalities.
Dr. O'Donnell is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. He serves on numerous committees for the AHA, NHLBI and NIH. In 2000, Dr. O'Donnell was a recipient of the National Institutes of Health Award of Merit for his research achievements at the Framingham Heart Study. In 2005, he was named to the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles and chapters.
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E. Magnus Ohman, MD, FRCPI, FACC
Professor of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center
E. Magnus Ohman, MD, is a professor of medicine and director of the program for advanced coronary disease at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Ohman was educated at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and Saint Laurence's (Richmond) Hospital, both in Dublin. He received his MD from the National University of Ireland. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Saint Laurence's Hospital and Saint Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. He also served as a research fellow in the department of clinical pharmacology at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, where he was also a lecturer in clinical pharmacology. He completed a fellowship in the division of cardiology at Duke University Medical Center and subsequently came on staff as faculty, where he rose in the ranks to associate professor with tenure. In addition, he served as the director of consultative cardiology and associate director of the critical care transport program for Duke University Health System. After ten years at Duke, he accepted the position of chief of the division of cardiology and director of the UNC Heart Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he served for nearly five years before returning to Duke to create a new program for the care of patients with advanced heart disease.
Dr. Ohman's research career has spanned from basic science to clinical trials. His initial work was in the field of adrenergic receptors, but subsequently he became interested in clinical trials and worked with the ISIS group in Oxford, England and served as the National Coordinator for Ireland for the ISIS-2 trial. His clinical research has been in the area of interventional cardiology, reperfusion therapy and risk stratification in acute coronary syndromes. He has served on the Steering Committees of ISIS-2, GUSTO I, II, III and IV trials in ST-elevation myocardial infarction and for the PARAGON, PURSUIT, SYMPHONY, ACUITY and EARLY ACS trials in non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome. He has performed a number of phase 2 trials as well, including trials examining adjunctive therapies with thrombolytic therapy. During his work on clinical trials, he became interested in quality-of-care initiatives and, in particular, adherence to the ACC/AHA guidelines. Jointly with Dr. Brian Gibler, he serves as the Executive Co-Director of the CRUSADE National Quality Improvement Initiative, which attempts to improve the adherence to the ACC/AHA guidelines to optimize care for patients with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome. He also serves on the Executive Committee for the REACH Initiative to examine adherence to secondary prevention in patients with vascular disease in 54 countries and six continents.
Based on his research, Dr. Ohman has contributed more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, abstracts, book chapters and invited publications. He currently serves as an associate editor for the American Heart Journal and is a member of the editorial board for the European Heart Journal, American Journal of Cardiology, Canadian Journal of Cardiology and Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy. He is a peer reviewer for the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology on the guidelines for cardiac surgery, non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome, ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction, heart failure and percutaneous coronary intervention. He is also the chair of the peer review committee for guidelines for thrombolytic therapy for the American College of Chest Physicians and the chair of the acute cardiac care committee of the American Heart Association.
Dr. Ohman is a recipient of the Edith Walsh Award from the British Medical Association. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Royal Society of Medicine, European Society of Cardiology, American College of Cardiology, the Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions and the American College of Chest Physicians.
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