George Bakris, MD, MA, FASH, FASN, FAHA
Professor of Medicine
Director, ASH Comprehensive Hypertension Center
The University of Chicago Medicine
Chicago, IL

Dr. George Bakris is a Nephrologist/Certified Hypertension Specialist trained at the Mayo Clinic and the University of Chicago Medicine. He is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Am. Heart Assoc. Comprehensive Hypertension Center at the University of Chicago Medicine. He has published over 900 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the areas of diabetic kidney disease, hypertension, and nephropathy progression. He is the Editor or Co-Editor of 23 books in the areas of Diabetic Kidney Disease Progression and Hypertension. Additionally, he is the Co-Editor of the 3rd and new 4th edition of Hypertension: A Companion to Braunwald’s: The Heart. He has served on the Cardiorenal Advisory Board of the FDA and consultant to CMS. He chaired the first National Kidney Foundation Consensus report on blood pressure and its impact on kidney disease progression. He has also served on many national guideline committees, including The Joint National Committee JNC 7 executive committee and writing group, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Clinical Practice Guideline Committee, and the National Kidney Foundation (K-DOQI), Blood Pressure and Diabetes Guideline committees. He Chaired the ADA Blood Pressure Consensus Report (2016) and served on the ACC/AHA writing committee on the Resistant Hypertension Consensus report (2016-2017). Dr. Bakris is the past president of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (2000) and the American Society of Hypertension (ASH) (2010- 2012). He is the recipient of the Irvine Page-Alva Bradley Lifetime Achievement Award-Am Heart Assoc. BP Council (2019) and National Kidney Foundation of Illinois Lifetime Service Award (2020). He serves on more than 15 editorial boards and is the current Editor-in-Chief of American Journal of Nephrology, Editor-in-Chief - UpToDate, Nephrology section, Hypertension Section Editor UpToDate and Assoc. Editor of Diabetes Care and Am. Heart J. Plus.

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, this his 44th 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”.

Vera Bittner, MD
Professor of Medicine
Endowed Scholar in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention
Section Head of General Cardiology, Prevention and Imaging
University of Alabama School of Medicine
Birmingham, Alabama

Dr. Vera Bittner is a Past President of the National Lipid Association and Past Chair of the ACC Prevention Section. She has conducted federally funded and industry-funded clinical trials for more than 30 years and has served on multiple Data Safety Monitoring Board’s for NIH-funded multi-center studies.

Her primary research interest is in secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease with an emphasis on cardiac rehabilitation and lipid-lowering therapy. Her research in cardiac rehabilitation was recognized with the 2014 Michael L. Pollock Established Investigator Award from the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR) and she was the 2019 recipient of the W. Virgil Brown Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship from the National Lipid Association.

John B. Buse, MD, PhD
Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor
Chief, Division of Endocrinology
Director, Diabetes Center
Director, NC Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute
Senior Associate Dean, Clinical Research
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Chapel Hill, NC

Dr. John B. Buse is the Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor, Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Director of the Diabetes Center, Director of the NC Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute and Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Research at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He received his MD and PhD from Duke University before training in internal medicine and endocrinology at the University of Chicago. Dr Buse currently works with a team of investigators and study coordinators at UNC in the conduct of multicenter and single-site studies in the prevention and treatment of type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus as well as real world data analyses and translational efforts. Dr. Buse completed service as President for Medicine & Science at the American Diabetes Association in 2008. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the 2010 Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year Award and the 2019 American Diabetes Association Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Diabetes Research Award. He has authored more than 500 publications.

Silvio E. Inzucchi, MD
Professor of Medicine, Endocrinology
Clinical Director, Section of Endocrinology
Director, Yale Diabetes Center
Director, Endocrinology & Metabolism Fellowship
Director, Yale Affiliated Hospitals
Yale School of Medicine
New Haven, CT

Dr. Silvio E. Inzucchi received his undergraduate degree from Fordham University in New York City and his MD degree from Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and his post-doctoral Fellowship in Endocrinology and Metabolism at Yale-New Haven Hospital, in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He is currently Professor of Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, where he serves as Clinical Chief of the Section of Endocrinology, Medical Director of the Yale Diabetes Center, and Program Director of the Endocrinology & Metabolism Fellowship.

Dr. Inzucchi has been an invited lecturer both nationally and internationally on many topics, most pertaining to clinical diabetes management. He has authored or co-authored more than 500 manuscripts, chapters, monographs, and abstracts, some published in the most prestigious medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. A former member of the editorial board of Diabetes Care and Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Dr. Inzucchi served as co-chair of the writing group for the 2012 and 2015 ADA-EASD Position Statements on the Management of Hyperglycemia in Type 2 Diabetes.

His current research interests include pharmacological antihyperglycemic therapy in both the inpatient and outpatient settings; and the link between type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular complications. He has held leadership roles in several large clinical trials related to diabetes medications and their cardiovascular impact.

Dr. Inzucchi is the recipient of the Samuel Eichold II Memorial Award for Contributions in Diabetes from the American College of Physicians in 2018 and Outstanding Physician-Clinician in Diabetes Award from the American Diabetes Association in 2021.

Salim S. Virani, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine
Division of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Research
Baylor College of Medicine
Investigator at the Health Policy, Quality, and Informatics Program
Michael E, DeBakey VA Medical Center
Houston, Texas

Dr. Salim Virani's clinical practice includes being a Preventive Cardiologist at Baylor College of Medicine and the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (MEDVAMC), with a special emphasis on management of complex dyslipidemias. He also serves as the Director for the Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Training Program at Baylor College of Medicine and Co-Director for the VA Advanced Fellowship Program in Health Services Research & Development at MEDVAMC. Dr. Virani earned his medical degree from the Aga Khan University in Pakistan, graduating with the Best Medical Graduate Award. Dr. Virani completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Miami, there receiving an award as the Best Resident. He then completed a Cardiology fellowship at the Texas Heart Institute, where he served as the Chief Cardiology Fellow and received the Tauber Award for the Outstanding Graduating Fellow. Dr. Virani’s research portfolio aims to understand the pathophysiology and epidemiology of atherosclerosis with a special emphasis on South Asians. His team is also studying several domains in the delivery of high-quality guideline concordant primary and secondary cardiovascular disease preventive care via funded research grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, NIH, AHRQ, and the World Heart Federation.

He has authored or co-authored more than 525 peer-reviewed publications or book chapters (several with his mentees) related to various aspects of cardiovascular disease prevention including cholesterol, blood pressure control and aspirin therapy. He has published in high-impact journals such as Circulation, European Heart Journal, JAMA, JAMA Cardiology, and Journal of the American College of Cardiology. This work has received more than 95,000 citations. He has been recognized as “World Expert” in Cholesterol by Expertscape (top 0.01% of scholars writing about cholesterol from 2011-2021 among 181,887 published authors).

Dr. Virani has been a recipient of the Scott Grundy Award for Excellence in Lipids Metabolism Research from the American Heart Association (AHA), the Jeremiah Stamler Distinguished Young Investigator Research Award, Leadership Award from the American College of Cardiology (ACC) NCDR® Oversight Committee, National Lipid Association (NLA) President’s Service Award, and the Clark Faculty Service Award at Baylor College of Medicine for exemplary professionalism and community service. Dr. Virani serves as the Chair for the ACC’s Global NCD Academy, Digital Strategy for the cardiovascular disease prevention related content for ACC.org and the ACC International’s Global Quality Solutions Work group. He serves on the Board of Directors for the American Society of Preventive Cardiology, At-Large Board Member for the Southwest Chapter of the NLA, and as a member on the ACC’s Science and Quality Committee. He has also served as Chair for the AHA's Cardiovascular Disease Statistics Committee, Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease Section of the ACC and the Research and Publications Committee of the ACC’s PINNACLE Registry (the largest outpatient cardiovascular disease registry in the world), and as the Associate Editor for Innovations for ACC.org. He has been inducted several times in the Best Doctors® Database (peer-reviewed group that includes the top 5% of U.S. physicians). More recently, Dr. Virani has served as a panel member for the 2018 AHA/ACC Multi-society Guideline on Cholesterol Management, the 2019 ACC/AHA Guideline for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, and the 2019 World Heart Federation/International Diabetes Federation’s Road Map on the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease among People Living with Diabetes. Currently, he is serving as a member of the writing group on the World Heart Federation’s Road Map on Cholesterol Management and the European Atherosclerosis Society’s Consensus statement on Lipoprotein(a). Dr. Virani firmly believes in the notion of Civil Society that one of the most important objectives of being able to acquire quality education is to serve the communities in which we live and the communities in need. In that respect, he spends ~15-20 hours per week in voluntary service with a dedicated team of volunteers to (a) provide educational and behavioral intervention related resources to combat NCDs in the community (b) play an active role in health care capacity building for communities in South Asia, Central Asia, and East Africa. He also serves on the World Heart Organization’s Technical Advisory Group on NCD related research and innovation (TAG/RI). He is married to Shireen Asharia (a Pharmacist by profession) and they are blessed to have two loving kids. Naail and Reyah.

Raven Voora, MD
Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine
Division of Nephrology
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Dr. Raven Voora has been a member of the Division of Nephrology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2011. Prior to joining the Division of Nephrology, she was practicing with a nephrology group in Fairfax, Virginia.

At UNC, Dr Voora is involved in the management of acute and chronic kidney disease. She is also a hypertension specialist and sees patients with hypertension at the UNC Hypertension Clinic, where a multidisciplinary approach utilizes both lifestyle modification and medications, as well as investigative techniques to treat hypertension. She is interested in diagnosing and treating patients with difficult to manage hypertension as well as routine and less common causes of hypertension. She is Co-Director of the UNC Hypertension Clinic. In addition, she sees patients with kidney disease in Chapel Hill and the Burlington Kidney Center in Burlington, North Carolina.

Michael Weber, MD, FACP, FACC, FAHA
Professor of Medicine
Downstate College of Medicine
State University of New York
Brooklyn, New York

Dr. Michael Weber is a Professor of Medicine at Downstate College of Medicine of the State University of New York. He received his medical degree from Sydney University in Australia.

His career has focused largely on hypertension and preventive cardiology. He has been a leading part of several of the clinical trials that have helped define strategies for optimizing cardiovascular protection for patients with hypertension. He has also been very much involved with new drug development going back to the beta blockers and through to the contemporary angiotensin receptor blockers. He is also playing a leading role in current trials of device therapy of hypertension, particularly renal denervation. He was also one of the pioneers in developing ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, a technique now recommended for clinical practice by the major clinical hypertension guideline committees.

He is an author of over 500 articles in the peer-reviewed literature and has authored or edited 16 books. He was a founder of the American Society of Hypertension (ASH) and the ASH Hypertension Clinical Specialists Accreditation Program and has served as President of both those organizations. He was Chair of the Writing Committee of the 2014 ASH/ISH Hypertension Clinical Practice Guidelines. Dr. Weber maintains a strong interest in global hypertension issues and until recently was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Society of Hypertension. He is currently on the Board of the World Hypertension League.

He was the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Clinical Hypertension until 2019, the official Journal of the World Hypertension League. He is a Fellow of The American College of Physicians, The American College of Cardiology and The American Heart Association. He has served on the Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Board of the Food and Drug Administration and continues as a consultant to that Agency. He has also served as Chairman of the Formulary Committee of a major pharmacy benefits provider serving many of the leading health plans in the United States.

His main research interests are in clinical trials of patients at high risk of cardiovascular events or strokes. Dr. Weber currently serves on the Steering Committees of several national and international clinical trials.