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”.

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 Am J Nephrology, Editor-in-Chief of UpToDate, Nephrology section, Hypertension Section Editor of UpToDate, and Assoc. Ed of Diabetes Care and Am. Heart J. Plus.

Peter Howard Jones, MD, FACP, FNLA
Director, Weight Management Center
Houston Methodist Hospital
Associate Professor of Medicine
Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention
Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX

Dr. Peter H. Jones received his BS in chemistry in 1974 at Washington and Lee University, where he was a summa cum laude and a Phi Beta Kappa student. He completed his MD at the Baylor College of Medicine in 1977 as the Michael E. DeBakey Scholar. He completed his internal medicine residency at Baylor, and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Lipidology. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and of the National Lipid Association. He was a board member of the National Lipid Association (NLA) from 2006-2010, served as the Secretary (2003-2004) and as President (2005-2006) of that organization, and was a board member of the American Board of Clinical Lipidology (2006-2011). He is the Chief Science Officer for the National Lipid Association (2013 - present). He has served in a number of academic, scientific and community committees and has published more than 200 clinical abstracts, articles, and chapters in textbooks. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Lipidology.

Robert F. Kushner, MD, MS
Professor of Medicine
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Director, Center of Lifestyle Medicine
Chicago, IL

Dr. Robert F. Kushner is Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Director of the Center for Lifestyle Medicine in Chicago, IL, USA. After finishing a residency in Internal Medicine at Northwestern University, he went on to complete a postgraduate fellowship in Clinical Nutrition and earned a Master’s degree in Clinical Nutrition and Nutritional Biology from the University of Chicago, IL, USA. Dr. Kushner is past President of The Obesity Society, the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, and the American Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists (ABPNS), and a founder and first Chair of the American Board of Obesity Medicine (ABOM). Dr. Kushner has authored over 250 original articles, reviews, books and book chapters covering medical nutrition, medical nutrition education and obesity, and is an internationally recognised expert on the care of patients with overweight or obesity issues. He is author/editor of multiple books; current books include Nutrition and Bariatric Surgery (CRC Press, 2015), Lifestyle Medicine: A Manual for Clinical Practice (Springer, 2016), Creating a Lifestyle Medicine Center (Springer, 2020), Six Factors to Fit – Weight Loss that Works for You! (Eat Right Press, 2020), and Primary Care: Evaluation and Management of Obesity (Wolters Kluwer, 2022).

Marie E. McDonnell, MD
Chief, Diabetes Section
Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Arlington, MA

Dr. Marie E. McDonnell is Chief of the Diabetes Section in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston. She is the current Director of the Diabetes Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the Massachusetts General Brigham health care system.

A graduate of Boston University School of Medicine, the New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia residency program, and Endocrinology fellowship at Boston Medical Center, Dr. McDonnell’s clinical research is on health outcomes and implementation of scalable specialty-level diabetes care delivery services in the acute and ambulatory settings. Her focus is designing and testing care models for marginalized patient populations with diabetes. Dr. McDonnell has served on several national guideline committees and is the current Chair of the Endocrine Society Clinical Guidelines committee.

Donna H. Ryan, MD, FACP
Professor Emerita
Pennington Biomedical Research Center
Baton Rouge, LA

Dr. Donna H. Ryan is Professor Emerita at Pennington Biomedical in Baton Rouge, LA. Dr Ryan’s research focuses on nutrition, obesity and obesity comorbidities. She has been an investigator for various US National Institutes of Health-sponsored studies, including Pounds Lost, DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), DPP (Diabetes Prevention Program) and the Look AHEAD study. Dr. Ryan’s continuing interests focus on translation of effective weight management into primary care practices. Dr Ryan served as Co-Chair on the expert panel for the 2013 ACC/AHA/TOS evidence-based Guidelines on the Evaluation and Management of Overweight and Obesity in Adults and was a panel member of the 2015 Endocrine Society Systematic Evidence Review and Guidelines for Medications that Affect Body Weight. She has authored more than 300 publications on obesity. She is an active lecturer and consultant in obesity and its treatment. Dr. Ryan is Co-Chair of the Steering Committee SELECT, a cardiovascular outcome trial of semaglutide.

Lisa VanWagner, MD, MSc, FAST, FAHA
Associate Professor of Medicine
Director of Clinical Research
Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, TX

Dr. Lisa VanWagner is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. Dr. VanWagner received her medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. She then completed her Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology and Transplant Hepatology training at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL while concurrently obtaining her master’s degree in Clinical Investigation from the Northwestern University Graduate School. She joined the Northwestern Faculty as Assistant Professor of Medicine in 2015. In July 2022 she joined the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX as Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Clinical Research in the Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases.

Dr. VanWagner utilizes human population-based approaches, large electronic health record data analysis and health services research methods to define and characterize cardiometabolic disease risk prediction, prevention, and treatment approaches in patients with chronic liver disease. Her scientific work has been recognized by leading professional organizations, with awards from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), American Society of Transplantation (AST) and American Heart Association (AHA). She has published over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Her publications have been the first to describe findings such as the increased risk of adverse cardiac events after liver transplant for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and her team developed the first liver transplant-specific cardiovascular disease risk assessment tool for clinical use (available at: www.carolt.us). Other publications have been used to develop strategies for policymakers, such as the AHA (annual statistics update), and for clinical practice guidance (AST and AHA guidance on cardiovascular disease evaluation and management in liver transplantation). Dr. VanWagner is a fellow of the AHA and AST, past chair of the AST Liver and Intestine Community of Practice (LICOP) and is an active member of the Practice Guidelines Committee for the AASLD. Her clinical practice focuses on patients with chronic liver disease both before and after liver transplantation.