CONFERENCE CHAIR:
Jan N. Basile, MD, FACP, FASH, FAHA
Professor of Medicine
Division of Cardiology
Medical University of South Carolina
Ralph H Johnson VA Medical Center
Previous Vice-Chair of Clinical Programs AHA Council of Hypertension
US National Leader SURPASS-CVOT
Charleston, SC

Dr. Jan N. Basile earned his medical degree in 1978 from the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. He then completed his internship and residency at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, where he was also Chief Resident. He is board certified in internal medicine and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP), the American Society of Hypertension (FASH), and the American Heart Association (FAHA). For many years he served on the American Society of Hypertension (ASH) Board of Directors and has served within the AHA as Vice-Chair of Clinical Programs on the Council of Hypertension.

His honors and awards include the MUSC School of Medicine Excellence in Teaching award, the Golden Apple award, and, in 2014, he was the first recipient of the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control Hypertension Physician of the Year award. In 2019, he received the Marvin Moser Clinical Hypertension Award from the American Heart Association Council on Hypertension. He was President of the Southern Medical Association from 2008-2009.

Currently, he is Professor of Medicine at MUSC in the Division of Cardiology. He spent 31 years at the Ralph H Johnson VA Medical Center while faculty at MUSC, having retired from federal service as Chief of Primary Care in 2009. He remains a volunteer at the VA, his 45th year at that hospital. At MUSC, he continues to teach all 3rd year medical students clinical hypertension during their 3rd year core medicine rotation and currently sees clinical patients enrolled in research trials on the role of renal denervation in controlling hypertension.

Dr. Basile’s career research interests include outcome-based clinical trials involving hypertension, lipid disorders, and diabetes. He has been involved in many large hypertension trials that have defined how we treat hypertension including the NHLBI sponsored ALLHAT, ACCORD, SPRINT and SPRINT-MIND trials. In addition, he has been a principal investigator for the ACCOMPLISH, VALUE, ONTARGET, and TRANSCEND trials. Most recently, he has been involved in diabetes outcome trials with GLP1RA's including REWIND and is the US National Leader for the SURPASS-CV Outcome Trial comparing Dulaglutide with the dual-agonist Tirzepatide.

Dr Basile was a contributing reviewer of the Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC 7) and the 2017 ACC-AHA Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults. He has published more than 400 original papers, abstracts, and book chapters, as well as a textbook, Hot Topics: Hypertension. He continues to be a contributing author for the hypertension section of “Up To Date”.

Marc-Andre Cornier, MD
Professor of Medicine with Tenure
James A. Keating Endowed Chair in Diabetes
Director, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolic Diseases
Medical University of South Carolina
Charleston, SC

Dr. Marc-Andre Cornier is currently Professor of Medicine with Tenure, James A. Keating Endowed Chair in Diabetes, and Director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).

Prior to that, Dr. Cornier received his undergraduate education at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where he received a bachelor of science in Biomedical Engineering in 1987. He then attended the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Georgia, receiving his medical degree in 1992. He went on to do his internal medicine residency at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC from 1992 to 1995. He followed this with a fellowship in Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes at the University of Colorado health Sciences Center in Denver, Colorado, which he completed in 1999. He was then on faculty at the University of Colorado with the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes until 2021.

At the University of Colorado, Dr. Cornier was Associate Division Head for Endocrinology as well as Associate Director of the University of Colorado Anschutz Health and Wellness Center and an Associate Director of the University of Colorado Obesity Medicine Fellowship Program. Dr. Cornier was the Director of the Advanced Lipid Disorders Clinic and Lipoprotein Apheresis Program at University of Colorado Hospital and where he also ran a diabetes clinic. At MUSC he continues to focus on cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes, lipid disorders and obesity where he is also the medical director of the Diabetes Medical Service and Chair of the Hospital Diabetes Task Force.

Dr. Cornier is an active clinical and translational investigator with a primary research interest in understanding the complex regulation of food intake and body weight and in studying optimal interventions for weight management and metabolic health. He has also been involved in clinical trials for investigational treatments for lipid disorders and obesity. Dr. Cornier has been an active volunteer and leader in important health-related associations, such as the Endocrine Society, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, National Lipid Association, and The Obesity Society.

Nihar R. Desai, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine
Vice Chief, Section of Cardiovascular Medicine
Investigator, Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation
Yale New Haven Health System
New Haven, CT

Dr. Nihar R. Desaiis an Associate Professor of Medicine and Vice Chief of the Section of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, an Investigator at the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, and Medical Director for Value Innovation at the Yale New Haven Health System Heart and Vascular Center. His interests focus on cardiovascular health services and comparative effectiveness research, examining patterns of care, identifying opportunities to improve clinical outcomes, and evaluating the impact of novel care delivery systems on cost and quality. In addition, he serves as a clinical consultant on the CMS acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and coronary artery bypass graft surgery readmission and mortality measures. He graduated with highest honors from Lehigh University before completing an internship in the Clinton White House. He then attended the University of Connecticut School of Medicine where he received his Doctorate in Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health where he received his Master’s in Public Health. Dr. Desai completed his residency training in Internal Medicine as well as his clinical fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He then completed a research fellowship at the TIMI Study Group with Dr. Eugene Braunwald. His scholarly work has been published in New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Circulation, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Keith C. Ferdinand, MD, FACC, FAHA, FASH, FNLA
Gerald S. Endowed Chair in Preventive Cardiology
Professor of Medicine
Tulane University School of Medicine
Tulane Heart and Vascular Institute
New Orleans, LA

Dr. Keith C. Ferdinand is Professor of Medicine at the Tulane University School of Medicine and the Tulane Heart and Vascular Institute in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was previously Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at Xavier University, New Orleans and Clinical Professor of Medicine at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Ferdinand received his medical degree from the Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC. He is board-certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease, certified in the subspecialty of nuclear cardiology, and a specialist in clinical hypertension certified by the American Society of Hypertension.

Dr. Ferdinand is past Chair of the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention and has served as Chief Science Officer and past chair of the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC). He has also served as a board member of the American Society of Hypertension, the Southwest Lipid Association, and the International Society of Hypertension in Blacks.

As an investigator, Dr. Ferdinand has conducted numerous trials in the fields of cardiology, cardiovascular disease, lipids and cardiometabolic risk, especially in racial and ethnic minorities. Dr Ferdinand’s participation in research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the Journal of Clinical Hypertension, the American Journal of Cardiovascular Drugs, Clinical Lipidology, the journal Cardiorenal Medicine, and Hypertension.

Dr. Ferdinand serves on the editorial review board of Hypertension, Journal of Clinical Hypertension, the Journal of the American Society of Clinical Hypertension, Cardiorenal Medicine, as well as The Medical Roundtable-CV. He has lectured nationally and internationally on topics including cardiovascular disease in the African American population, heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and racial and ethnic disparities in cardiovascular outcomes.

In 2004, Dr. Ferdinand received the Louis B. Russell, Jr. Memorial Award of the American Heart Association and the Walter M. Booker Community Service Award of the ABC. In 2010, he was recognized by the Congressional Black Caucus Health Trust with an award for journalism, as well as the Charles Drew award for medical excellence in conjunction with the National Minority Quality Foundation. In 2015, Dr. Ferdinand was inducted into the Association of University Cardiologists. Most recently, he was awarded the Wenger Award for Medical Leadership in 2017 by WomenHeart and also the ABC Spirit of the Heart Distinguished Leadership Award. In 2018, he was named the Gerald S. Berenson Endowed Chair in Preventive Cardiology at Tulane School of Medicine.

Naomi D. L. Fisher MD
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Director of Hypertension Service and Hypertension Innovation
Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Boston, MA

Dr. Naomi Fisher received her Bachelor of Arts degree in the History and Philosophy of Science from Princeton University, and her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension as well as a research fellowship in Hypertension at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She is Director of Hypertension Services and Hypertension Innovation at BWH.

Dr. Fisher has been engaged in almost three decades of clinical research at Harvard University, focusing on cardiovascular endocrinology. She has conducted dozens of clinical trials in her areas of research expertise which include hypertension; renal denervation; home blood pressure measurement; renal vascular hemodynamics; diabetes; and flavanols. Dr. Fisher’s extensive bibliography includes not only original scientific reports in high impact medical journals, but standards of care, reviews, chapters, and national guidelines.

Dr. Fisher directs the hypertension program for Mass General Brigham Innovation, which was built to replace the traditional office-based system of hypertension management with entirely remote, algorithmic, non-physician led treatment. To date several thousand patients have been enrolled. Dr. Fisher is an expert in the field of renal denervation (RDN). She served as site-PI for the RADIANCE-HTN trials with ultrasound-based RDN for mild, moderate and resistant hypertension, and she is national co-PI of the RADIANCE-HTN RDN Continued Access Protocol.

Finally, Dr. Fisher is a veteran teacher. She has directed courses at the Harvard Catalyst Clinical and Translational Science Center on designing clinical trials and effectively communicating research. She has lectured in many Harvard curricula and is regularly invited to teach nationally and internationally.

Jennifer Green, MD
Professor of Medicine
Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Nutrition
Duke University Medical Center
Durham VA Medical Center
Durham, NC

Dr. Jennifer Green is a professor of medicine in the division of endocrinology, metabolism, and nutrition at Duke University and a faculty member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute. Her research has focused upon strategies to treat diabetes mellitus and reduce the risk of cardiovascular, kidney and other diabetes-related complications. Her work with the DCRI has included protocol development, oversight of adjudication committees, and clinical and operational leadership for several large, international trials designed to determine the cardiovascular effects of glucose-lowering medications (TECOS, EXSCEL, and Harmony Outcomes). She currently serves as US coordinating center PI and US national representative for the EMPA-Kidney trial of empagliflozin therapy in patients with chronic kidney disease. Dr. Green has concluded three years of service as a member of the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Professional Practice Committee, which publishes the organization’s annual Standards of Care in Diabetes. She is now a member of the ADA-EASD writing group which recently revised a joint consensus statement on the management of hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes.

Stephen P. Juraschek, MD, PhD, FAHA, AHSCP-CHS
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Research Director, Hypertension Center at Healthcare Associates
Division of General Medicine, Section for Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston, MA

Dr. Stephen P. Juraschek is a physician investigator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the Research Director of the AHA-certified Hypertension Center of Excellence at Healthcare Associates. His research involves clinical trials and epidemiologic studies focused on hypertension, nutrition, and cardiovascular disease prevention. He is an internationally recognized expert in orthostatic hypotension and was an invited member of NHLBI’s 2017 Working Group on blood pressure measurement. He also currently serves on the American Medical Associations’ Validate Blood Pressure committee, AAMI’s Sphygmomanometer Committee, the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Council, a KDIGO guideline writing group on blood pressure measurement, and the editorial board of the American Journal of Hypertension. His current work focuses on translational interventions to improve access to healthy foods as well as blood pressure measurement in aging cohorts.

James A. Underberg, MD, MS, FACPM, FACP, FNYAM, FASPC, FNLA
Lipidology & Cardiovascular Disease Prevention
Diplomate American Board of Clinical Lipidology
Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine
NYU Medical School & NYU Center for CV Prevention
Director, Bellevue Hospital Lipid Clinic
Past-President National Lipid Association
President American Board of Clinical Lipidology
New York, NY

Dr. James A. Underberg is a Clinical Lipidologist. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at NYU School of Medicine and the NYU Center for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease. He is also the Director of the Bellevue Hospital Lipid Clinic. Dr. Underberg holds joint appointments in the divisions of General Internal Medicine and Endocrinology at NYU.

Dr. Underberg is a Diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Lipidology and Past President of the National Lipid Association. He is a Fellow of the National Lipid Association, President of the American Board of Clinical Lipidology, and Vice President of the Foundation of the National Lipid Association. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Lipidology and is a board member of the Foundation of the National Lipid Association and the American Board of Clinical Lipidology.

Dr. Underberg’s clinical interests focus on the clinical management of patients with lipids and lipoprotein disorders and cardiovascular disease prevention. He maintains an active clinical research program in these areas and has authored numerous articles and book chapters in the field of Clinical Lipidology.

He sees patients both at Bellevue Hospital and in a University based Private practice setting.