Jan N. Basile, MD, FACP, FASH, FAHA
Professor of Medicine
Seinsheimer Cardiovascular Health Program
Medical University of South Carolina
Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center
Charleston, SC

Dr. Jan N. Basile earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. He then completed his internship and residency at the Medical University of South Carolina 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) and the American Society of Hypertension (FASH), and for many years served on the American Society of Hypertension (ASH) Board of Directors. Most recently, with the dissolution of ASH, he is serving within the AHA as Vice-Chair of Clinical Programs on the Council of Hypertension (FAHA).

His many honors and awards include the Medical University of South Carolina 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. He was President of the Southern Medical Association in 2008-2009.

Currently, he is Professor of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Basile spent 31 years at the Ralph H Johnson VA Medical Center having retired as Chief of Primary Care in 2009. He now directs the resistant hypertension clinic within the Seinsheimer Cardiovascular Health Program, a multiple-risk factor lipid and resistant hypertension referral clinic at MUSC.

Dr. Basile’s research interests include outcome-based studies involving hypertension, lipid disorders, and diabetes. He has been involved in many large hypertension trials including the ALLHAT, ACCORD, ONTARGET, ACCOMPLISH, and SPRINT trials under the auspices of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. He 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. Dr. Basile has published more than 300 original papers, abstracts, and book chapters, as well as a textbook, Hot Topics: Hypertension. He also is a contributing author for the hypertension section of "Up To Date".

John B. Buse, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine
Director, Diabetes Care Center
Chief, Division of Endocrinology
Executive 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 Executive Associate Dean for Clinical Research at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.

Dr. Buse received his MD and PhD from Duke University before training in internal medicine and endocrinology at the University of Chicago. He has been on the faculty at UNC since 1994. His efforts combine clinical care, research, administration and teaching. He works with teams of investigators in diabetes clinical trials, comparative effectiveness research and translation of basic science towards clinical application. He serves as Director of the NC Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute working through a NIH-based consortium to accelerate the conversion of ideas and discoveries to products and policies for the improvement of health and well-being. Dr. Buse completed service as President for Medicine & Science at the American Diabetes Association in 2008 and as Chair of the National Diabetes Education Program in 2014. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the 2010 Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year Award. He has authored more than 300 publications.

Ernest B. Clyburn, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Program Director, Internal Medicine Residency Program
Vice Chairman, Graduate Medical Education
Medical University of South Carolina
Charleston, SC

Dr. Benjamin Clyburn is Professor of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina and serves as the Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and Continuing Medical Education. After receiving his medical degree from MUSC, Dr. Clyburn completed his residency and chief resident year at the Bowman-Gray School of Medicine/North Carolina Baptist Hospital.

Dr. Clyburn is a member of the Society of General Internal Medicine and the Association of Program Directors of Internal Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society. He has been the recipient of a number of other honors including Best Doctors of America and the Golden Apple Award. Dr. Clyburn serves as the program director of MUSC’s internal medicine residency program and as the departmental vice chairman for graduate medical education.

He continues to have an active medical practice focusing on the care of adults in the general internal medicine setting.

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, and 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.

Hertzel C. Gerstein MD, MSc, FRCPC
Professor at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences
Population Health Research Institute Chair in Diabetes
Director of the Division of Endocrinology & Metabolism
Director of the Diabetes Care and Research Program
Deputy Director of the Population Health Research Institute
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Hertzel C. Gerstein is a Professor at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences, where he holds the Population Health Research Institute Chair in Diabetes and is the Director of the Division of Endocrinology & Metabolism, Director of the Diabetes Care and Research Program and Deputy Director of the Population Health Research Institute.

Dr. Gerstein’s research has been published in over 350 papers, spans 50 countries, and has been funded by the NIH, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Diabetes Association and the pharmaceutical industry. His research focuses on: a) the prevention and therapy of diabetes and its many consequences; b) the relationship between dysglycemia (a term he coined in 1995), cardiovascular outcomes, cognitive impairment, other diabetes-related chronic consequences, and new diabetes; c) strategies for type 2 diabetes remission; d) novel biomarkers for cardiovascular disease in diabetes; and e) the biologic basis of glucose-related health consequences. In 2016 he produced and distributed a music video to mitigate the impact of diabetes on affected people and their families. In 2012 he received the Canadian Diabetes Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Daichi Shimbo, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Ewig Clinical Scholar, Department of Medicine
Columbia University
New York City, NY

Dr. Daichi Shimbo received a B.S. from the Johns Hopkins University in Biomedical Engineering (1991) and a M.D. from the Albany Medical College (1995). After completing an Internal Medicine residency (1998), Dr. Shimbo went on to complete Chief Medical residency in Internal Medicine (1999) and fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine (2003) at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, before joining the faculty at Columbia University in September 2003. Currently, Dr. Shimbo is Associate Professor of Medicine and Ewig Clinical Scholar at the Columbia University. He is a clinical cardiologist, committed to creating and disseminating an evidence-base of patient-oriented research in how hypertension and its different phenotypes are related to cardiovascular disease onset. In particular, Dr. Shimbo’s work has led to improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension subtypes associated with the highest cardiovascular disease and mortality risk. Dr. Shimbo is the Director of the Columbia Hypertension Center, Director of the Translational Lab at the Center of Behavioral Cardiovascular Health, and Director of Cardiovascular Physiology Research at Columbia University Medical Center.

James A. Underberg, MS, MD, FACPM, FACP, FASH, FNLA
Clinical Lipidologist
Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine
NYU Center for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease
Director, Bellevue Hospital Lipid Clinic
NYU School of Medicine
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 Immediate Past President of the National Lipid Association. He is a Fellow of the National Lipid Association and President Elect of the American Board of Clinical Lipidology. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Lipidology and is a board member of the National Lipid Association, the Foundation of the National Lipid Association, The American Society of Preventive Cardiology and the American Board of Clinical Lipidology. Dr. Underberg also serves on the scientific advisory board of the FH Foundation.

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.

Salim S. Virani, MD, PhD, FACC, FAHA
Professor, Section of Cardiovascular Research
Director, Cardiology Fellowship Training Program
Baylor College of Medicine
Staff Cardiologist, Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center
Houston, TX

Dr. Salim S. Virani is a Professor in Cardiology and Cardiovascular Research Sections at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is also an investigator in the Health Policy, Quality, and Informatics Program at the Michael E. DeBakey VA HSR&D Center of Innovation in Houston, TX. His clinical practice includes being a Preventive Cardiologist at Baylor College of Medicine and the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, with a special emphasis on management of complex dyslipidemias. He also serves as the Director for the Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Virani’s research portfolio aims to understand several domains in the delivery of high quality primary and secondary cardiovascular disease preventive care including effectiveness, equity, safety, and efficiency. Via funded research grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs, American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association, his team is evaluating models of delivery of cardiovascular disease preventive care, how to leverage machine learning to identify statin intolerance, and how point-of-care informatics driven interventions can improve guideline-concordant care delivery. His team is also evaluating how best to leverage technology to deliver high-quality care in Low-Middle Income Countries. He has authored or co-authored >300 peer-reviewed publications or book chapters (several with his mentees) related to various preventive therapies including cholesterol, blood pressure control and aspirin therapy with several in high-impact journals such as Circulation, European Heart Journal, JAMA Internal Medicine, JAMA Cardiology, and Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Dr. Virani has been a recipient of the Scott Grundy Award for Excellence in Lipids Metabolism Research from the American Heart Association (AHA) and the Jeremiah Stamler Distinguished Young Investigator Research Award. Dr. Virani serves as the Chair for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease Section of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and Chair for the AHA's Cardiovascular Disease Statistics Committee. He also serves as the Chair for the Research and Publications Committee of the ACC’s PINNACLE Registry (the largest outpatient cardiovascular disease care delivery registry in the world). He also serves as the Associate Editor for Innovations for ACC.org and the Chair for Digital Strategy for the cardiovascular disease prevention related content for ACC.org. He has been a panel member for the 2018 AHA/ACC Multisociety Cholesterol Guidelines and the 2019 ACC/AHA Guideline on the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease.