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WHO IS XENTER?

Xenter is launching new wireless technologies for interventional medicine, creating a digital health platform that will aggregate devices, medical data and diagnostics to enable better patient outcomes

The People That Make it Work

Xenter is led by some of the world’s most accomplished entrepreneurs and industry veterans.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MANAGEMENT

founding scientific ADVISORS

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORS

Technology Advisory Board

MEDIA ALERT — Nov. 15, 2022

11:30am on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022: Utah Valley University Presidential Lecture Series will feature Keynote Speaker Elazer R. Edelman, M.D., Ph.D. (world renowned cardiologist, biomedical

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WHERE ARE WE LOCATED?

From our corporate headquarters in vibrant Salt Lake City to our virtual global network, we are highly accessible and ready to connect with you.

UTAH
Xenter Inc. Headquarters
344 West 13800 South Suite 400
Draper, UT 84020
385.799.6400
[email protected]

CALIFORNIA
Xenter Inc.

1817 Aston Avenue, Suite 105
Carlsbad, CA 92008

Richard J. Linder

Chairman & CEO
Prior to founding Xenter, Mr. Linder served as the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of CoNextions Medical, a company he founded to specialize in the development and manufacture of medical devices for Orthopaedic Surgery in tendon re-construction and tendon to bone anchoring. Prior to CoNextions, Mr. Linder served as President of the Cardiovascular Division of Remedy Informatics, a company providing medical registries of Electronic Health Record (EHR) data. Before Remedy, Mr. Linder served as President/CEO of Coherex Medical, Inc., a Salt Lake City, UT based medical device company specializing in the development of Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO) closure devices and Left Atrial Appendage (LAA) occlusion devices for use in patients with Atrial Fibrillation (AF) and Stroke. Mr. Linder negotiated and entered into agreements with Johnson & Johnson/Biosense Webster to invest in and acquire Coherex Medical.
Prior to Coherex, Mr. Linder served as Vice President of Vascular Protection for Boston Scientific/Rubicon Medical, and he served as President/CEO of Rubicon Medical, a company he Co-Founded. Mr. Linder Co-Founded Rubicon Medical in 1996, took the company public in 2000, and invented the underlying medical devices for the Rubicon Vascular Protection Filter for patients undergoing Carotid artery and Saphenous Vein Graft stenting.
Mr. Linder began his career at Merit Medical Systems, Inc., a South Jordan, UT publicly traded (Nasdaq) global medical device company. Mr. Linder is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of BioUtah, Utah’s independent life science association representing Utah’s medical device companies, drug development and drug discovery companies, and diagnostic companies. Mr. Linder was appointed by the Utah Speaker of the House of Representatives to the Governing Authority of the Utah Science Technology and Research Initiative (USTAR), and Mr. Linder participated in the oversight of The James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building A USTAR Innovation Center which houses the Nano Institute of Utah, many Utah Technology Commercialization Grants, and other activities. USTAR’s Governing Authority oversaw $430M in Utah taxpayer money and assisted the University of Utah and Utah State University in recruiting world class research programs to the State of Utah’s major public universities.

Mr. Linder has served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Boy Scouts of America (Salt Lake City, UT) and was the Executive Vice President of Finance. He has served on the Board of Directors for many private and public companies including Rubicon Medical, Coherex Medical, CoNextions Medical, Juneau BioScience, Vital Access Corp., and Dynatronics. He has been an invited speaker, meeting faculty, panelist, and Keynote speaker at Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), American College of Cardiology (ACC), Dartmouth 3D, BioUtah Life Science Summit, and many other conferences and meetings. Mr. Linder attended both Brigham Young University and the University of Utah where he studied Business Management and Organizational Behavior. Mr. Linder is the inventor of many medical devices in Interventional Cardiology, Interventional Radiology, Neuro-Interventional Radiology, Orthopedic Surgery, Female Reproductive Medicine, and a Percutaneous Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD). He is an inventor on over 100 US and international patents for medical device technologies. Mr. Linder has been in many countries around the world and has overseen several multi-center clinical research trials for medical devices. Mr. Linder is the recipient of the Utah Governor’s Medal for Science & Technology.

JIM TOBIN

Board Member

James R. Tobin has been at the helm of 5 different companies. Mr. Tobin is Chairman for TransMedics Group, Inc. and Chairman at TransMedics, Inc. (a subsidiary of TransMedics Group, Inc.). He has been on the board of over 20 companies, currently serving on the boards of Globus Medical, Oxford Immunotec and TransMedics.

Mr.Tobin served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Boston Scientific from March 1999 to July 2009. Before joining Boston Scientific, Mr. Tobin served as the President and CEO of Biogen, Inc., from 1997 to 1998 and as its Chief Operating Officer from 1994 to 1997. Mr. Tobin also worked at Baxter International in various capacities from 1972 to 1994, including as its President and Chief Operating Officer from 1992 to 1994. Mr. Tobin also currently serves on the board of directors of Oxford Immunotech Global PLC (NYSE: OXFD), a global diagnostics company, Corindus Vascular Robotics, Inc. (NYSE American: CVRS), a leading developer of precision vascular robotics and two private companies, TransMedics, Inc., and Resolys Bio, Inc.

He served as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy from 1968 to 1972. Mr. Tobin holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and an A.B. from Harvard College. He is well qualified to serve on our board of directors and on our Audit Committee and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee for numerous reasons, including his decades of experience as a senior executive of large multinational healthcare and medical device companies, and his service as a director of Boston Scientific Corporation.

ROBERT S. LANGER, SCD

Board Member

Robert S. Langer, ScD, is one of 12 Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member. He has written more than 1,500 articles, which have been cited more than 340,000 times; his h-index of 286 is the highest of any engineer in history and tied for the 4th highest of any individual in any field. His patents have been licensed or sublicensed to more than 400 companies. He served as Chairman of the FDA’s Science Board (its highest advisory board) from 1999-2002. His over 220 awards include both the United States National Medal of Science and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (he is one of 3 living individuals to have received both these honors), the Charles Stark Draper Prize (often called the Engineering Nobel Prize), Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Albany Medical Center Prize, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Kyoto Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry, Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (highest award of the American Chemical Society), Gairdner Prize, and the Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences. He holds 35 honorary doctorates and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors.

Elazer R. Edelman, MD, PHD

Board Member/Founding Scientific Advisor/Chair of Scientific Advisory Board

Elazer R. Edelman, M.D., Ph.D., is the Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Senior Attending Physician in the coronary care unit at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He and his laboratory have pioneered basic findings in vascular biology and the development and assessment of biotechnology. Dr. Edelman directs MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Clinical Research Center (CRC) as well as the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center (BMEC) – all dedicated to applying the rigors of the physical sciences to elucidate fundamental biologic processes and mechanisms of disease.

Dr. Edelman received Bachelor of Science degrees in Bioelectrical Engineering and in Applied Biology from MIT, a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from MIT, a Ph.D. in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from MIT, and an M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School. His graduate thesis work, under the direction of Prof. Robert Langer, defined the mathematics of regulated and controlled drug delivery systems. After internal medicine training and clinical fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine at the BWH he spent six years as a research fellow in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School with Prof. Morris J. Karnovsky working on the biology of vascular repair. Many of his findings have been or are now in clinical trial validation. More than 300 students and postdoctoral fellows have passed through Dr. Edelman’s laboratory enabling publication of more than 680 original scientific articles and some 80 patents.

Dr. Edelman is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the Association of University Cardiologists, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Inventors, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Engineering.

MARK STAUTBERG

Board Member

Mark Stautberg has more than 35 years of medical device Sales & Marketing experience, most notably at Boston Scientific as the Senior Vice President, Sales for the Cardiovascular businesses. As SVP from 1998-2004, he grew sales ten-fold & led the launch of the TAXUS Drug Eluting Stent to unprecedented adoption, market share, revenue & speed. During Mark’s entire fourteen plus years at Scimed/Boston Scientific, he held key roles that led to their position as the leading company in Interventional Cardiology. Prior to Boston Scientific, Mark had roles of increasing responsibility at Baxter International, including Director of Marketing for the Hospital Supply Division. He also served on numerous medical device company Boards, both private & public, where he mentored commercial teams to success. Mark has a BBA in Marketing from the University of Cincinnati.

Xenter’s first product, which the company will announce shortly, is a medical device that not only combines the function of multiple existing devices but will also revolutionize the field of interventional medicine by producing valuable Physical Intelligence™ data and enabling advanced Artificial Intelligence solutions, leading to improved patient outcomes while reducing the cost, complexity and invasiveness of cardiac procedures.

Jianwei Liu

VP of Semiconductor Technology
Jianwei is a senior leader specializing in advanced sensor technologies and foundry development and operations in the semiconductor industry. His focus has been on emerging technologies on medical ultrasound imaging transducer, MEMS sensor devices, advanced chip packaging, micro-display, and magnetic disc drive.
Prior to joining Xenter, Inc. Jianwei was the VP of MEMS Technology for Butterfly Network, Inc., a Sr. Director at TDK InvenSense, and held Sr. positions at QUALCOMM, Inc., Seagate Technology and Miradia, among others.
He received his Bachelor of Science from Peking University and a Master’s degree and PhD. from the University of Michigan.

BRET PETERSON

Vice President of Finance

Bret Peterson is an experienced finance professional with over 20 years in the medical device business.  He has held various leadership positions in the Neurovascular business for Boston Scientific and Stryker, as well as a Neurovascular startup (Precision Vascular Systems) that was sold to Boston Scientific in 2004. He is skilled in implementing internal controls, acquisition integrations, strategic and financial planning, accounting and standard cost development.

Mr. Peterson was responsible for integrating several acquisitions for Stryker and ensuring they were properly incorporated into Stryker’s financial systems.  Mr. Peterson also helped formulate and implement several money saving initiatives relating to facility expansion and manufacturing consolidation that resulted in $15M+ annual savings. 

Mr. Peterson graduated from Brigham Young University with a Master of Management Accounting degree and currently lives in Draper, UT with his family.

ERIC PEARSON

Executive VP & General Counsel

Raised in Southern California, Mr. Pearson graduated summa cum laude in 1992 from Brigham Young University with degrees in History and Portuguese and then in 1995 from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor on the Harvard Law Review.  Before joining the Xenter team, Mr. Pearson built a vibrant law practice in Salt Lake City focused on business relationships and corporate transactions, advising a wide range of clients that include software companies, restaurant owners, private equity firms, asset-based commercial lenders, airlines, Web-based retailers, oil and gas ventures, gold and copper mining companies, real estate syndicators, registered broker-dealers and real estate developers.

Mr. Pearson has a keen interest in the interplay between emerging technologies and the law. Eric’s tech hobbies include coding in Python. From 2003 to 2009, he and a partner built and sold eWatches.com, an ecommerce business specializing in wristwatches. Eric built a cryptocurrency mining rig from scratch. He most likely owns the high score for Galaga at DefCon 27’s arcade party.

Mr. Pearson has served as a founding board member of Team Kid Courage, a non-profit dedicated to helping children with disabilities, participate in sporting and other active events notwithstanding their physical limitations. Eric enjoys spending time with his wife, children and grandchildren, and is an avid skier, marathoner and mountaineer.

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BRAD JENSEN

Vice President of Intellectual Property

Mr. Jensen graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and worked as an engineer for several years prior to attending law school and the University of Houston, where he graduated cum laude.  Before joining Xenter, Mr. Jensen had a successful practice in intellectual property law representing a diverse clientele that ranged from individual inventors to some of the largest companies in the world. 

Mr. Jensen has extensive experience in intellectual property law including patent preparation and prosecution, trademark prosecution, freedom to operate and infringement analysis, post grant procedures with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, trademark oppositions, and patent and trademark litigation. 

Mr. Jensen’s patent practice has involved a variety of technologies including medical devices, aerospace technologies, oil and gas technologies, manufacturing processes and materials science, alternative energy, filtration and separation technologies, mining, input devices for consumer electronics, exercise equipment and sporting goods, firearms, and business methods and software.

Mr. Jensen has been honored to be included in Utah’s Legal Elite, Mountain States Super Lawyers, and The Best Lawyers in America® for multiple years.

Mr. Jensen enjoys spending time with his wife, children, and grandchildren.  He also enjoys the outdoors, fly fishing, and photography.

 

MICHAEL EKSTROM

Vice President of Information Technology

Ekstrom loves to serve, share, mentor, and learn from others.   In addition to his extensive IT background, professional role at the U of U and now Xenter, Ekstrom has served on the board of Westnet (consortium of higher-ed IT leaders) and served as President.

Ekstrom has 30+ years of experience building, maintaining, and growing enterprise class services for IT, health care and academic organizations.

Ekstrom’s career started in his teens as he worked with his older brother on run-length encoding as a full-text indexing compression algorithm.  He graduated cum laude from Brigham Young University.  He was privileged to work with Dr. Helmuth Orthner, PhD and Dr. Homer Warner, MD, PhD researching and deploying clinical solutions across the University Health organization as part of the University of Utah Medical Informatics program.  Ekstrom gained a reputation as someone deeply committed to driving clinical solutions that were reliable and valuable—including the deployment and support of both the Cerner and EPIC electronic health records over the next 13 years.  In 2013, Ekstrom was asked to bring his customer service and enterprise mindset to the broader IT vision in a campus-wide role.  In that role, Ekstrom’s leadership role included everything from network and data center services to communications infrastructure technologies.  These solutions served both the health care and broader academic mission. Cloud services like O365, Gmail, Box, Teams, etc. were also a part of his portfolio. Ekstrom enjoys playing a key role in bringing innovation across traditional boundaries and avoiding a silo mentality.

WILLIAM A. GRAY, MD

Founding Scientific Advisor/Senior Medical Director

William A. Gray, MD is the System Chief, Division of Cardiovascular Disease, at Main Line Health and President of the Lankenau Heart Institute in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Gray graduated cum laude from Dickinson College in 1980, and Temple University School of Medicine in 1984. He completed an internship, residency, and chief residency at Brown University from 1984-88. Dr. Gray continued at Brown University until 1992, completing his clinical cardiology fellowship. Dr. Gray entered private practice in Albuquerque, NM in 1992 and continued there until 1999, during which time he was involved as a board member in the construction of a free standing Heart Hospital, served as the president of his private group, and began research in early non-surgical approaches to peripheral vascular disease, especially in patients with carotid artery disease at risk for stroke.
Dr. Gray was recruited by Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, WA to begin a program in Endovascular Care. While at Swedish, Dr. Gray began research into structural heart disease, specifically Atrial and Septal Defects, Left Atrial Appendage occlusion for patients with AF and Stroke, and Mitral Valve repair. Dr. Gray returned to academic research and joined Columbia University/New York Presbyterian Hospital from 2005-2010, and was a member of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York City, NY and course Co-Director of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT). Dr. Gray is board certified in Interventional Cardiology, Cardiovascular Disease, and Vascular Medicine.

Barry T. Katzen, MD

Founding Scientific Advisor/Senior Medical Director

Barry T. Katzen, M.D., is the founder and chief medical executive Emeritus of Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, a Baptist Health South Florida center of excellence. He is professor and founding chairman of the Department of Interventional Radiology and professor of Surgery at the FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.

He has had a distinguished clinical career and is considered one of the pioneers of interventional radiology, nationally and internationally. In developing the Institute more than 30 years ago, Dr. Katzen established a long history of innovation within the organization, creating a unique culture of multidisciplinary collaboration to improve patient care, as well as developing numerous new procedures and devices pioneered at Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute.

Dr. Katzen has participated in and gained experience in the process of innovation throughout his career. From bringing innovative changes to healthcare delivery, the development of transformational devices including vascular stents, endovascular grafts, unique devices for delivery of thrombolytic agents, and all forms of devices for minimally invasive therapies of vascular diseases.

His opinions about new technology are regularly sought by established companies and startups from around the world. Dr. Katzen has shown his ability to influence successful development by integrating his fundamental knowledge of medicine and unmet needs, with a strong predictive sense of what might work well in developing technological solutions for clinical challenges.

Dr. Katzen is a graduate of the University of Miami School of Medicine with a residency at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. He studied in London and Rome three distinct times during his educational career. He has been recognized with gold medals and honorary memberships in national and international professional societies and was awarded the Leaders in Innovation Award by the Society of Interventional Radiology.

Dr. Katzen’s passion for innovation led to the formal initiation of an innovation program at Baptist Health in 2016, through supporting changes in the organization’s vision statement to include commitment to innovation as a program and process.

MARTIN B. LEON, MD

Founding Scientific Advisor

Martin B. Leon, MD is Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). Dr. Leon is also Director of the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy (CIVT), Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories, and on the Executive Board of the Columbia NewYork-Presbyterian Heart Valve Center. He continues as a practicing Interventional cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Dr. Leon is also the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation.
Dr. Leon has served as principal investigator for over 50 clinical trials that have helped shape the field of interventional cardiovascular medicine, including the following studies: STRESS, STARS, Gamma-one, SIRIUS, ENDEAVOR, and most recently, the PARTNER trial, studying the value of transcatheter valve therapy for patients with aortic stenosis. Dr. Leon has co-authored over 1550 publications, has performed over 10,000 interventional procedures, and has had a major impact as a thought-leader and innovator in the expanding sub-specialty of interventional cardiovascular device and drug therapies.
He is the Director and Founder of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), the world’s premier interventional cardiovascular meeting, which recently celebrated its 24th anniversary. Dr. Leon has also served as Director or Co-Director of more than 100 international educational programs in areas of interventional cardiology. Dr. Leon has received 10 international career achievement awards and was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Athens.
Dr. Leon was previously the Director of Cardiovascular Research and Education at the Lenox Hill Heart and Vascular Institute in New York. Prior to that, he was Director of Clinical Research at the Washington Cardiology Center at the Washington Hospital Center and Clinical Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC. Earlier in his career, he served as a Clinical Associate, Senior Investigator, and Director of the Catheterization Laboratories in the Cardiology Branch of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. He was a founder of the Washington Cardiology Center and the Cardiology Research Foundation in Washington, DC.
Dr. Leon completed a fellowship in Cardiology at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. He completed medical school at the Yale School of Medicine, and his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Yale-New Haven Hospital.

ALLEN JEREMIAS, MD

Scientific Advisor

Allen Jeremias, MD, MSc is an interventional cardiologist at St. Francis Hospital, Roslyn, NY. He is the Director of Interventional Cardiology Research and Associate Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. He is also the Director of the Physiology Core Laboratory at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, New York, NY. He was previously the Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Stony Brook University Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Medicine at SUNY Stony Brook.
Dr. Jeremias earned his medical degree at Heinrich-Heine-University School of Medicine in Düsseldorf, Germany, and a Master of Science degree at Harvard Medical School. He completed his medical training at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Stanford University School of Medicine, as well as Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. Board certified in cardiovascular medicine and interventional cardiology, Dr. Jeremias is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology as well as the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions.
He has numerous publications in the area of interventional cardiology and is the editor of the medical text, Cardiac Intensive Care. Dr. Jeremias is the author of Your Personal Guide to Angioplasty, a patient-centered book focusing on coronary artery disease and various treatment options. He also is the recipient of numerous awards, including Castle Connolly’s Top Doctors: New York Metro Area, 2009 – 2016.

BINOY SINGH, MD, FACC

Scientific Advisor
A Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, Binoy K. Singh, MD, FACC, is a remarkable clinical cardiologist who maintains a position as Associate Chief of Cardiology at Lenox Hill Hospital/Lenox Hill Heart and Vascular at Yorktown in Yorktown Heights, New York. Dr. Singh is an entrepreneurial clinical cardiologist with biomedical engineering background and interest in healthcare system integration, new venture opportunities, physician recruitment, healthcare management and business development growth initiatives. Throughout the years, he has demonstrated success in developing new health care technical and imaging applications, clinical practice growth initiatives and developing business development opportunities. Furthermore, Dr. Singh is an Assistant Professor at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine in Hempstead, New York, and, in the past, he was a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Singh can also be found on staff at Northwell Health Physicians Partners.

BINNY SHAH, MD

Scientific Advisor
Dr. Pinak Bipin Shah is director of the Interventional Cardiovascular Disease Training Program and director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). A cardiovascular medicine specialist, he is also an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
He received his medical degree from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed an internal medicine residency at BWH and served as chief medical resident. He then completed fellowships in cardiovascular disease, interventional cardiology and cardiovascular clinical biometrics at BWH. He is board certified in cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology.
Dr. Shah’s clinical interests include catheterization based techniques for the treatment of complex valvular and structural heart disease as well as complex coronary intervention. Dr. Shah’s practice focuses on trans-catheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), mitral valve interventions, PFO/ASD closure, alcohol septal ablation for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) cases. Dr. Shah has received research funding from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. He has also been listed one of America’s Top Doctors by Castle Connolly.

DAVID GRAINGER, PHD

Scientific Advisor
David W. Grainger is a University Distinguished Professor and Department Chair of Biomedical Engineering, and Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Utah, USA. Grainger’s research focuses on improving drug delivery methods, implanted medical device and clinical diagnostics performance, and nanomaterials toxicity. Grainger has published >210 research papers and 30 book chapters on biomaterials innovation in medicine and biotechnology, and novel surface and diagnostics chemistry (H-index 62, >14,000 citations). His research awards include a 2016 Fulbright Scholar Award (New Zealand), the 2013 Excellence in Surface Science Award (Surfaces in Biomaterials Foundation), the 2007 Clemson Award for Basic Research (Society for Biomaterials), and the 2005 American Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturer’s Association’s award for “Excellence in Pharmaceutics”. Grainger also has received several prominent university teaching and mentoring recognitions as well as the 2019 Daniels Fund Award for Education in Research Ethics.
He has served as Chair of several prominent USA research review panels and now serves on the National Institutes of Health NIBIB Council. He serves on the editorial boards for 6 major journals, past handling editor for the journal, Biomaterials, for over two decades, and a special topics editor for Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews. He has co-organized over 30 international symposia. Dr. Grainger is recognized with numerous prominent university teaching awards and has provided nearly 400 invited lectures and outreach workshops globally. He consults widely for the biomedical device and pharmaceutical industry and has been a principal in 6 biotech start-ups, with successful commercialization efforts and marketed medtech products. Dr. Grainger continues to emphasize translational approaches to clinical biomaterials, and validation of clinical effectiveness in implants and drug delivery systems for value-based medicine. He provides leadership in official Scientific Advisory Board roles on several international medical technology research consortia and global research foundations.

Evan Shlofmitz, DO

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Evan Shlofmitz is an Interventional Cardiologist and the Director of Intravascular Imaging at St. Francis Hospital – The Heart Center in Roslyn, NY. He completed a fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at Georgetown University/MedStar Washington Hospital Center. He previously completed an Intravascular Imaging and Physiology fellowship at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) and Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), a Cardiovascular Disease fellowship at Northwell Health and served as Chief Resident for Internal Medicine at New York Presbyterian Queens. He serves on SCAI’s Ischemic Heart Disease Council and is a co-director of Optimizing PCI (OPCI). Dr. Shlofmitz has a strong interest in clinical education, lecturing internationally.  His research interests have centered on intravascular imaging, the treatment of calcified coronary artery disease, in-stent restenosis and the optimization of stent implantation, with more than 130 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

FRED WELT, MD

Scientific Advisor
Frederick Welt, M.D. is Associate Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine and Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. He is a professor of medicine and member of the Interventional Cardiology faculty.
Dr. Welt most recently served as the Director of Interventional Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, as well as Director of the Interventional Cardiovascular Experimental Laboratory. His clinical practice included outpatient clinical care and performing diagnostic catheterizations and coronary interventions.
Dr. Welt specializes in both interventional coronary and structural heart disease cases including Trans Catheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR). His clinical responsibilities include invasive management of acute heart attacks and assessment of valvular heart disease, coronary stent implantation/balloon angioplasty and PFO/ASD closure.
He is also an active clinical investigator, having been involved in the PARTNER trial of transcatheter aortic valve replacement devices, translational research of novel devices to treat structural heart disease and protocols involving stem cell therapy for cardiac disease.
Dr. Welt graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine in 1992, and completed residency and fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He also served as Chief Resident at the West Roxbury VA Hospital and completed a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School. In addition to practicing and teaching at BWH and Harvard he has written numerous journal articles as well as serving as a reviewer for publications.

GARY MINTZ, MD

Scientific Advisor
Gary Mintz, MD is the author of more than 1,000 peer-reviewed articles or book chapters and 850 abstracts concerning clinical cardiology, cardiac ultrasound, hemodynamics, coronary arteriography, interventional cardiology, and intravascular imaging and physiology. In 2005, Dr. Mintz published the single-authored textbook Intracoronary Ultrasound. He has trained more than 200 research fellows, many of whom are now key opinion leaders in their countries and internationally and is widely regarded as a “Master of Masters” in interventional cardiology.
In 2014, he received the “Master of the Masters” career achievement award and the Chien Foundation Award for Outstanding Lectureship and Lifetime Achievement at the TCTAP-Cardiovascular Summit in Seoul, Korea. He also received the Outstanding Achievement Award at CBS 2017 in Nanjing, China, and the Career Achievement Award at New Frontiers in Interventional Cardiology (NFIC) 2018 in Krakow, Poland.

Dr. Mintz completed his undergraduate education at the University of Pennsylvania in 1970 and received his medical degree from Hahnemann University in 1974, both in Philadelphia, PA. He finished his internship in 1975, residency in 1976, and cardiology fellowship in 1978, each at Hahnemann University. He joined the Hahnemann University Department of Medicine in 1978 and was promoted to Professor of Medicine in 1987 before joining CRF in 1991. His administrative appointments there included Director of the Cardiac Ultrasound Laboratory, Director of the Coronary Care Unit, and Director of the Cardiology Fellowship Training Program. He received teaching awards from both the Department of Medicine Residency and Cardiology Fellowship Training Programs.

Gus is a results driven executive with 20+ years of progressive leadership experience in advanced engineering solutions, operations management, program management and business development within growth and turnaround environments. Strategic and resourceful problem solver with demonstrated success restructuring underperforming operations, executing strategic plans, and reducing operating costs to increase profitability and productivity.
He earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering from Drexel University and a bachelor’s in mathematics from Saint Vincent College.

GREGG W. STONE, MD, FACC, FSCAI

Scientific Advisor

Gregg W. Stone is Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center, Director of Cardiovascular Research and Education at the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and Co-Director of Medical Research and Education at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York, NY. Dr. Stone has served as the national or international principal investigator for more than 80 national and international multicenter randomized trials, has authored more than 2000 book chapters, manuscripts and abstracts published in the peer-reviewed literature, and has delivered thousands of invited lectures around the world. Dr. Stone’s areas of expertise include interventional therapies of acute coronary syndromes and myocardial infarction; drug-eluting stents; antiplatelet and antithrombotic pharmacotherapies; transcatheter mitral valve repair and replacement; new device angioplasty including atherectomy, distal embolic protection, thrombectomy, vascular brachytherapy, and stent grafts; saphenous vein graft therapies; intravascular imaging; chronic total occlusions; left atrial appendage closure; vulnerable plaque; contrast nephropathy; clinical trial design; and regulatory issues. Dr. Stone, along with Dr. Martin B. Leon, is the director of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), the world’s largest symposium devoted to interventional cardiology and vascular medicine, directs the annual National Interventional Cardiology Fellow’s Course, and co-directs multiple other annual courses, including Optimizing Complex PCI Outcomes, The Left Main and Chronic Total Occlusion Summit, Bioresorbable Scaffolds: A Breakthrough PCI Technology, LAA Occlusion: A Technique Oriented Course, and Transcatheter Valve Therapies. Dr. Stone’s medical practice is devoted to interventional cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center.

Dr. Stone previously held similar positions at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York and the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC. Previously he was the Director of Interventional Cardiology at the Cardiovascular Institute at El Camino Hospital and Stanford University Medical Center in California.
Dr. Stone completed medical school at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, in Baltimore, MD, and his internship and residency at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in New York City. He completed his general cardiology fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA, under Dr. Jeremy Swan, and subsequently a dedicated fellowship in advanced coronary angioplasty with Dr. Geoffrey O. Hartzler in Kansas City, MO.

JAMES FANG, MD

Scientific Advisor
James Chen-tson Fang, M.D., is the Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine and Director of the Cardiovascular Service Line at University of Utah Health Care. He holds the John and June B. Hartman Presidential Endowed Chair and is Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Dr. Fang graduated from Duke University with a major in Mathematics and minor in Chemistry (1984) and received his medical degree from the Duke University School of Medicine (1988). He completed his internship and residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1991) and was selected as an Assistant Chief of Service (Chief Resident) for the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1993). He completed his cardiovascular (1996) and heart failure/transplant fellowships (1997) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School.
His first faculty appointment was at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School in 1997, where he remained until 2006. He served as Associate Professor of Medicine, Medical Director of the Heart Transplant Program as well as Program Director of the Cardiovascular Fellowship Training Program during his tenure in Boston.
In 2006, he was recruited to University Hospitals/Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland as Clinical Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine/Associate Chief for Clinical Affairs, Medical Director of the Heart Failure, Transplant, and Circulatory Assist Program and Chief Medical Officer for the Harrington Heart and Vascular Institute. While in Cleveland, he also held the Spitz Master Clinician Chair at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where he was a Professor of Medicine.
In 2013, he assumed the role of Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Utah and Executive Director of the UU Health’s Cardiovascular Service Line. Dr. Fang’s role at the University of Utah includes leading efforts to ensure the institution is recognized as a premier clinical, educational, and research institution for cardiovascular disease. He continues to develop highly skilled multidisciplinary teams that provide comprehensive, personalized and cost-effective care, and oversees the research, education and clinical care programs of the Cardiovascular Division.
Dr. Fang is a highly regarded clinician, teacher, mentor and researcher. He is the author of more than 175 original articles, editorials, and book chapters and has lectured nationally and internationally. He has been part of a number of important cardiovascular research groups and collaborations and has special interest in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, advanced heart failure, coronary artery vasculopathy of the transplanted heart, and the cardiorenal syndrome. He has led several position statements for the Heart Failure Society of America as well as the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. He currently serves on the ACC/AHA Heart Failure Guideline Committee and on the Board of Directors of the Heart Failure Society of America. He was elected to the Association of University Cardiologists in 2013 and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Professors of Cardiology.

JAMES TCHENG, MD

Scientific Advisor
James E. Tcheng, MD is a Professor of Medicine and a Professor of Informatics at Duke University, Durham, NC. He is a practicing interventional cardiologist as well as faculty of the Duke Clinical Research Institute and the Duke Center for Health Informatics. He serves as Chief Medical Information Officer of the Duke Heart Network, Information Technology Director for the Duke Heart Center, Director of the Duke Cardiovascular Databank, and Director of Performance Improvement for the Duke Cardiology Division. He is a key investigator of the FDA Medical Device Epidemiology Network (MDEpiNet), a non-regulatory member of the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF), past Chair of the ACC Informatics and Health IT Task Force and the ACC Digital Strategy Committee, and is a member of the ACC/AHA Task Force on Clinical Data Standards. He is on the Board of Directors of the Regenstrief Foundation and the HL7 Advisory Board and is an advisor to a number of medical innovation companies. His current work focuses on harmonizing the clinical and operational definitions and informatics of cardiovascular clinical data elements across academia, regulatory agencies, the life sciences industry, professional societies, and standards organizations, to improve the capture, communication, interoperability, and analysis of healthcare information.

JARED BUNCH, MD

Scientific Advisor
Dr. T. Jared Bunch, a native of Logan Utah, graduated from Utah State University with University and Department honors and received the Bill Robbins memorial award for leadership, service, and academics. He then graduated from the University of Utah School of Medicine and received Alpha Omega Alpha honors. He completed his internal medicine residency at Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. During residency he received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Department of Medicine, the Resident Research Award from the Department of Medicine, and the Donald J. Feist Primary Care Clinic Award for Clinical Excellence. He completed fellowships in cardiovascular diseases and electrophysiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. He received the Mayo Brothers Distinguished Fellowship Award for clinical care of patients and the Donald C. Balfour Award for meritorious research. He served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic from 2003-2007. After fellowship he joined the cardiovascular team at Intermountain Heart Institute and directed heart rhythm research. He served as the medical director of heart rhythm services for Intermountain Healthcare. At Intermountain Medical Center he received the Physician Researcher of the Year for the Intermountain Healthcare System in 2014 and in 2017. In 2012, he was awarded a Healthcare Hero Award for Innovation by the Utah Business Association. While at Intermountain Healthcare he also was an Affiliated Clinical Associate Professor for Stanford University from 2015-2019. In 2019 he left Intermountain Healthcare to join the faculty at the University of Utah School of Medicine as a Professor of Medicine.
Dr. Bunch is active in the Heart Rhythm Society and has served as an ambassador for Central and South America and Southeast Asia. He is the founding editor of the Heart Rhythm Case Reports Journal. He is a section editor for Current Cardiology Risk Reports, Heart Rhythm Journal, and a guest editor for American Heart Journal. He is on the editorial boards of the Heart Rhythm Journal, Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology, Heart, American Heart Journal, JACC electrophysiology, and the Journal of Innovations in Cardiac Rhythm Management.
Dr. Bunch specializes in the diagnosis and management of heart rhythm disorders. He performs a broad range of procedures including endocardial and epicardial catheter ablation, insertion of implantable loop recorders, pacemakers (leadless and traditional), implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs – subcutaneous and traditional), and biventricular ICDs and pacemakers. He has extensive ablation experience in treatment of abnormal heart rhythms including supraventricular tachycardia, atrial fibrillation, WPW (Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome), ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, and premature ventricular contractions.
Dr. Bunch is interested in the management of atrial and ventricular arrhythmias, in particular nonpharmacologic strategies such as catheter ablation and in enhancing the safety of both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic treatments. His current research involves defining mechanisms underlying the association of atrial fibrillation and dementia and looking at therapeutic opportunities to lower risk of cognitive decline, the integration of wearable and implantable devices to improve early diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmias, and in improving mapping and catheter ablation of arrhythmias.

Jeffrey W. Moses, MD

Scientific Advisor
Dr Moses currently serves as Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Therapeutics at Columbia University Medical Center and as Director of Advanced Cardiac Interventions at St Francis Hospital and Heart Center in Roslyn, NY. Dr. Moses is an Associate Director of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference, the world’s largest interventional cardiology conference.
He serves on the Board of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York City; and he has made important contributions in the areas of clinical research and educational activities in interventional vascular therapy. He is also a pioneer in developing approaches involving minimally invasive surgery, angioplasty, gene therapy, novel imaging technologies and various support devices that allow for wider application of interventional cardiovascular procedures.

Honors & Awards
Research Fellowship Award, Southern Pennsylvania Heart Assoc. 1978-1980
Member, PTCA Subcommittee NHLBI-Study of Thrombolysis in
Acute Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) 1986-1987
Consultant: FDA Committee on Biologics 1986
Chairman: New York Angioplasty Society 1987-1988
Lectureship, Sendai Medical College, Tohoku Medical Society,
Sendai, Japan 1990
Lectureship, The Vivian & Norman Weiden Lecture: Innovative
Approaches to Coronary Artery Disease 1996
New York Cardiological Society, NYC
Listed in Best Doctors of the Year, New York Magazine 2004-2016
America’s Top Doctors –Castle Connolly 2005-2016
Lifetime Achievement Award, Cardiovascular Research Foundation 2006
C3 Lifetime Career Achievement Award-C3 Hall of Fame 2010

Douglas L. Packer, M.D.

Scientific Advisor

Douglas L. Packer, MD, is a Professor of Medicine, and the John M. Nasseff, Sr., Professor in Cardiovascular Diseases in the Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, Division of Cardiac Electrophysiology, at Mayo Clinic Rochester. He is Director of the Translational Electrophysiology Research Laboratory. Dr. Packer is internationally known in cardiac electrophysiology. 

 

Dr. Packer attended Brigham Young University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry, summa cum laude, in 1976. He then acquired a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Utah in 1980. Additional educational pursuits include an internship and residency in internal medicine at Duke University from 1980 to 1983, where he served as an assistant chief resident in internal medicine. He also trained there as a fellow of cardiology and electrophysiology from 1983 to 1985.

 

His honors and awards include the Haskel Schiff Award in Internal Medicine from Duke University in 1983, the Distinguished Service Award from Brigham Young University in 2006, and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American College of Cardiology in 2019. Dr. Packer has also received the Eric Prystowsky Advocate for Patients Award from the Stopafib.org patient-centered organization in 2018, the Eric N. Prystowsky Lectureship Award from the National Heart Rhythm Society in 2020, the Heart Society Presidential Award in July of 2021, and received the Pioneer in Cardiac Electrophysiology Award and while presenting at the KCHRS national meeting in 8/2021.

 

Dr. Packer is active in the Heart Rhythm Society where he is a past president and was a member of the Board of Trustees. He is also active in the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology. He has served/currently serves on editorial boards for the Circulation Arrhythmia & Electrophysiology, American Heart Journal, the Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology, Heart Rhythm journal, and the (EP) Journal of the American College of Cardiology. He also has served on multiple National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute work groups on atrial fibrillation, ablation and planning for future NIH studies.

 

Dr. Packer has been an active teacher and mentor, and also lectures widely on cardiac arrhythmias. He has written or co-authored more than 412 journal publications and 631 abstracts. He has lectured extensively in national and international meetings, giving over 1,920 invited lectures in 41 countries.  He has served on the executive committee of a number of NIH multicenter randomized clinical trials, Including the MUSTT, SCD-HeFT, and HAT Trials.  Dr. Packer is also the International Principal Investigator of the recently reported NIH CABANA Trial. In this capacity he led the consortium of centers directing the trial. He is the PI of the Thermedical VT Needle Electrode study, and on the Executive Committee of the LESS VT Study.

 

Dr. Packer is a Mayo Clinician Investigator.  His translational work focuses on the mechanisms and ablation of atrial fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia, and other cardiac arrhythmias, autologous fibroblast modulation of electrical impulse propagation in the heart, and the development of carbon particle catheter-free ablation of arrhythmias.  His clinical work investigates 4/5 dimensional integrated image-guided ablation, and the development of new energy sources for the modification of cardiac tissue.   His work has been funded in part by private foundations, the American Heart Association, and the NIH.  A key part of his research is the development of the Catheter Free Particle Therapy Ablation Program. He is also the PI of the Extracorporeal Particle Therapy Ablation Using Proton and Carbon Beams, that is currently under way. Dr. Packer holds US and European patents in the development of intracardiac ultrasound and 4/5D imaging, and particle therapy ablation. 

Dr. Packer is a member of the Arrhythmia & Electrophysiology Review editorial board.

MORTON J. KERN, MD

Scientific Advisor

Dr Morton J Kern, MD, is a professor of medicine at the University of California, Irvine, and chief of cardiology at the Long Beach Veterans Administration Medical Center.
Dr Kern received his medical degree and completed his internship/residency at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, and followed that with a fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. Before joining the University of California, Irvine, in 2006, Kern was a professor of medicine at St. Louis University, where he was also director of the J.G. Mudd Cardiac Catheterization Lab.
Kern is the author of several major textbooks, including The Cardiac Catheterization Handbook, which is used nationally and internationally to train physicians in the subject, and the recently published second edition of the SCAI Interventional Cardiology Board Review. His research interests include interventional cardiology education and practice, ACS, hemodynamics and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Research areas: Interventional Cardiology Education and Practice, Acute coronary syndromes, Hemodynamics, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Academic Distinctions
Honors:
2014 Master, Society of Cardiac Angiography and Intervention
2013 Elite Reviewer, Journal of American College of Cardiology
2012 Elite Reviewer, Cathand Cardiovascular Intervention
2011- ‘Best Doctors in America’, peer listing US News and World Report
2010 ‘Best Doctors in America’, peer listing US News and World Report
2010 ‘Best Cardiologists in Orange County’, peer listing, OC Register
2009 Simon Dack Award, Outstanding Scholarship from the JACC
2008 Southern California ‘Super’ Doctors (Cardiology), Orange Co Mag
1993-2005 Top Doctors in St. Louis (Cardiology), St. Louis Magazine
2004 Elite Reviewer, Journal of American College of Cardiology
1989 Certificate of Proficiency, SCAI
1976 Merck Scholarship Book Award
1975 Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society

Appointments
2014-Chief, Medicine Health Care Group, VA Long Beach Health Care System
2009-14 Chief, Division of Cardiology, VA Long Beach Health Care System2006- Associate Chief, Division of Cardiology, University California Irvine
2006- Professor of Medicine, Univ Calif Irvine, Orange, California
2008-2009 Director, Clinical Research, Long Beach Memorial Hospital 2005-2006 Director, Clinical Research, PCA, Costa Mesa, California
2005-2006 Voluntary Clinical Professor of Medicine, Cardiology, USC1991-2004 Professor of Medicine, St. Louis University School of Medicine1989-2004 Director, J.G. Mudd Cardiac Catheterization Lab, St. Louis Univ.1988-1991 Associate Professor of Medicine, SLU
1985-1993 Director Cardiac Cath lab, John Cochran VA , St. Louis
1985-1989 Associate Director, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, SLU
1985-1988 Assistant Professor of Medicine, Medicine/Cardiology, SLU
1984-1985 Associate Director, Cardiac Cath Lab. Audie L. Murphy VA UTSA
1982-1985 Assistant Professor of Medicine, Cardiology, Univ Texas HSC, San Antonio, Texas
1981-1982 Junior Associate, Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

RICHARD BROWN, PHD

Scientific Advisor
Richard is the Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Utah. Professor Brown earned his Electrical Engineering Ph.D. from the University of Utah. His dissertation produced one of the first smart sensors, an array of miniature ion-selective electrodes with integrated electronics.
He started his academic career at the University of Michigan, where he developed the VLSI program and conducted research on microprocessor design, silicon-based chemical sensors, and brain probes. At Michigan he held an Arthur F. Thurnau Endowed Professorship. In 2004, he was appointed Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Utah. The College has since grown engineering degrees granted from 484 to 1184, and research expenditures from $29M to $97M/yr. Since 2006, the College has spun out more than 76 companies.
Professor Brown has 21 patents and has authored more than 225 peer-reviewed publications. He is a founder of i-SENS (glucose sensors), Sensicore (chemical sensors), Mobius Microsystems (all-silicon clock generators), and e-SENS (water chemistry sensors). He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He was awarded the Utah Governor’s Medal for Excellence in Science and Technology and was the 2018 University of Utah Rosenblatt Prize recipient.

ROBERT J. SOMMER, MD

Scientific Advisor
Dr. Bob Sommer trained in Pediatrics and Pediatric Cardiology, and started the first Pediatric Interventional Catheterization Laboratory in New York City in 1991, and has been Board Certified in Pediatric Cardiology since 1991. In 1999, Dr. Sommer redirected his focus to the adult patient with Congenital Heart Disease, first by starting his own practice to care for this underserved population, then joining the faculty of Columbia University Medical Center in 2005. In 2017, Dr. Sommer was Board Certified in the new ABIM sub-specialty of Adult Congenital Heart Disease. Dr. Sommer performs catheter intervention for a wide array of congenital and structural disease, in “babies” of all ages including over 200 atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect and patent foramen ovale (PFO) closures annually. Dr. Sommer was an investigator in the CLOSURE I, RESPECT and REDUCE PFO/Stroke Trials, and was the National Cardiology PI for the ESCAPE Migraine-PFO trial. He was the Co-National PI on the ASSURED Trial which led to the recent FDA approval of the Cardioform ASD Occluder. He will be the National Cardiology PI on the upcoming RELIEF Migraine-PFO Trial, based on groundbreaking research done with NP Barbara Robbins. Two manuscripts on this topic were published in the journal NEUROLOGY in November 2018. Dr. Sommer directs the Left Atrial Appendage Closure Team at Columbia, having participated in the PREVAIL Trial and the CAP2 registry using the Watchman device. He is an investigator in the Amulet and Conformal LAA device trials. He is the local PI for the COMPASSION S3 Trial, using the Edwards Sapien 3 valve in the pulmonary position. Dr. Sommer and Ms. Robbins are the primary cardiac caretakers for over 300 pediatric and adult patients with congenital heart disease, with more than 1500 office visits each year. Dr. Sommer is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

ROXANA MEHRAN, MD

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Mehran is currently the Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Research and Clinical Trials at the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and is also professor of Medicine. She sees patients for Cardiac Catheterization, Acute Coronary Syndromes, Angioplasty & Stent Placement, Clinical Trials and much more.
Additionally, Dr. Mehran is internationally recognized for her work as a clinical trial specialist with complex data analyses and outcomes research within the field of interventional cardiology and for her experience and expertise in working with regulatory agencies to conduct clinical trials. Her research interests include everything from restenosis to treatment and prevention of acute kidney injury in cardiac patients, as well as advancing treatments for acute coronary syndromes and acute myocardial infarction.

TRAINING AND FACULTY APPOINTMENTS

Faculty Appointment
Professor, Medicine
Mount Sinai-Icahn School of Medicine
Medical School
Grenada, 1987
Residency
Univ Conn Health Center
Internal Medicine, 1988 – 1991
Fellowship
Mt Sinai Hosp
Cardiovascular Disease, 1991 – 1994
Fellowship
Mt Sinai Hosp
Interventional Cardiology, 1994 – 1995
AWARDS AND CREDENTIALS
Board of trustees — SCAI
Program Committee for the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions
Board of directors — Harboring Hearts
Program Chair for Society of Cardiac Angiography and Interventions (SCAI- WIN (Women in Innovations)) Initiative
Chief Scientific Officer of the Clinical Trials Center at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation

SHAWN C. OWEN, PHD

Scientific Advisor
Shawn C. Owen is an Assistant Professor in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, of Medicinal Chemistry, and of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah. He is also a member of the Huntsman Cancer Institute Experimental Therapeutics Program and the Nano Institute of Utah. Dr. Owen’s research focuses on antibody-based therapeutics and diagnostics. He is an expert on the construction and physicochemical analysis of antibody conjugates and is the co-inventor of a patented antibody-split enzyme system for diagnostic applications. He has published ~30 research papers on drug delivery and biotechnology and his research has produced 4 additional patent applications. Dr. Owen is recognized with several prominent University of Utah teaching awards and is sought for outreach workshops by both academic and industry sponsors.

TOLGA TASDIZEN, PHD

Scientific Advisor
Dr. Tasdizen received the PhD degree in Engineering from Brown University in 2001. He is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a faculty member of the Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute at the University of Utah. His areas of expertise are image processing, biomedical image analysis and machine learning. His laboratory has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland Security. He received the National Science Foundation’s Early CAREER award in 2012. Dr. Tasdizen’s research emphasizes developing novel solutions in image analysis and machine learning as well as making significant contributions to the driving medical applications. He has served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, IEEE Signal Processing Letters and BMC Bioinformatics in the past and currently continue to serve as a Senior Area Editor for IEEE Transactions on Image Processing.

VARINDER SINGH, MD

Scientific Advisor

Varinder Singh, MD, is responsible for the quality and delivery of cardiovascular care at Lenox Hill Hospital and Northwell Health’s Western Region. As chair, Dr. Singh has played an integral role in reestablishing Lenox Hill as a leading center for cardiovascular medicine in Manhattan. 

Previously, he was the director of cardiac interventions and Cath Lab operations, as well as associate director of acute coronary syndrome at Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Singh is secretary of the Lenox Hill Medical Board and a member of the hospital’s Credentials Committee and International Services Committee. He is an assistant professor of cardiology at the Zucker School of Medicine, and his professional memberships include the American College of Cardiology, Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, Bronx Medical Society and New York Medical Society.  

Dr. Singh, a Maryland native, completed his undergraduate education at Franklin and Marshall College. He received an MD from Meharry Medical College School of Medicine, where he was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. He did his residency training in internal medicine at New York Presbyterian and received the hospital’s Residents Research Award. He later completed fellowships at Drexel University College of Medicine (cardiology) and Mount Sinai Medical Center (interventional cardiology).

Eric A. Secemsky, MD

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Eric Secemsky is the Director of Vascular Intervention and an interventional cardiologist within the CardioVascular Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). He is also the Section Head of Interventional Cardiology and Vascular Research at the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He received his medical degree from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine as part of the combined BA/MD pathway and a Master’s of Science in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Secemsky completed his internal medicine training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Cardiovascular Medicine, Interventional Cardiology, and Vascular Diagnostics and Intervention training all at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/Harvard Medical School. Clinically, Dr. Secemsky splits his time attending in the cardiac catheterization lab and the inpatient and outpatient vascular medicine services. Dr. Secemsky is the primary vascular interventionalist within the BIDMC catheterization lab, where he does complex venous and arterial procedures, with a focus on peripheral artery disease.

Dr. Secemsky’s research involves utilizing real-world data to perform comparative effectiveness and outcomes research, with a focus on the treatment of peripheral vascular disorders. He has particular interests in drug delivery, intravascular imaging, antithrombotic therapy and pulmonary embolism intervention. Dr. Secemsky is also involved in clinical trial design and implementation and has served as an investigator on more than a dozen trials. Dr. Secemsky’s research program is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Harvard Medical School, extramural grants, and philanthropy. Dr. Secemsky has authored more than 100 publications and has mentored numerous medical students, residents, fellows, and junior faculty. He is an Associate Editor at Vascular Medicine and is on the Editorial Board at Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions. He is also the current Chair of the PERT Consortium Research Committee, is a writing member of the 2022 ACC/AHA Guideline on the Management of Lower Extremity Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) and is the co-director of the ACC’s Scientific Sessions’ Endovascular Program, SCAI’s Scientific Sessions’ Endovascular Program and SVM’s Fellows/APP Course.

WILLIAM FEARON, MD

Scientific Advisor

William Fearon, MD graduated from Dartmouth College and received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. He completed an Internal Medicine residency at Stanford University Medical Center serving an extra year as a Medical Chief Resident. He completed a General Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology fellowship at Stanford, spending his third year as the Chief Cardiology Fellow.  He is currently a Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and Director on Interventional Cardiology at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Chief of the Cardiology Section at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.  Dr. Fearon is board certified in cardiovascular medicine and interventional cardiology, and he is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, and the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions. He has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of University Cardiologists. 

Dr. Fearon’s primary area of research interest is in coronary physiology. He was a principal investigator for the FAME trials, which have resulted in multiple publications in the New England Journal of Medicine and led to worldwide adoption of the use of coronary physiology to guide revascularization decisions in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. He also derived and validated the index of microcirculatory resistance, which in now used commonly to assess coronary microvascular function.  He has over 250 publications, speaks regularly at major international conferences, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, JACC Cardiovascular Interventions, and Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions, among other journals, His research laboratory has had near continuous NIH funding and he is currently the principal investigator on an NIH grant evaluating cardiac allograft vasculopathy. He has received multiple teaching awards from Stanford University and mentored numerous clinician-scientists. Dr. Fearon’s clinical activities include not only percutaneous coronary intervention, but also transcatheter aortic valve replacement. 

ZIAD ALI, MD, DPhil

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Ali is a board-certified cardiologist specializing in interventional and structural cardiology at St Francis Hospital and Heart Center in Roslyn, New York. He is an internationally renowned expert in complex high-risk indicated percutaneous coronary interventions (CHIP) including the treatment of chronic total occlusions (CTO) where the arteries in the heart become completely blocked.
Dr. Ali specializes in the management of cardiovascular disease in patients with pre-existing kidney disease. His research interests focus on the use of advanced imaging and physiology technologies to optimize stent implantation, with a particular interest in how these modalities protect patients from kidney injury by sparing or eliminating the need for contrast.
He has held continuous National Institute of Health (NIH) research support for over a decade.• To date, Dr Ali has published more than 200 original research and review articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr Ali holds investigator awards from the European Vascular Society, British Cardiovascular Society, British Atherosclerosis Society, American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, Cardiovascular Research Foundation and European Association of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.
He serves on the Editorial Board for three major cardiovascular journals and peer reviews regularly for over 20 journals. Dr Ali also write’s curriculum for the American College of Cardiology.
Dr Ali has been and is the Global Principal Investigator of multiple multicenter randomized trials. He developed the Resting Full-Cycle Ratio (RFR) (Abbott, Santa Clara, CA), a technology which allows interventional cardiologists to determine whether heart artery blockages warrant treatment with stents or are better served with conservative management.
He was instrumental in the development of intravascular lithotripsy (Shockwave Medical, Santa Clara, CA), a technology which uses the age-old technique of breaking kidney stones with electrical energy, to allow treatment of calcium build up in the heart arteries.
Dr Ali developed pioneering techniques to perform coronary angiography with less than a tablespoon of contrast (≈10mL) (ultra-low contrast angiography), protecting patients with advanced kidney disease from contrast associated acute kidney injury and the potential need for dialysis.
By using his expertise in intravascular imaging and physiology, he established the techniques to perform vascular interventions, including arterial stent placement, completely free of contrast administration.
Ziad Ali is the Director of the DeMatteis Cardiovascular Institute, Director of Investigational Interventional Cardiology and Director of the Cardio-renal program at St Francis Hospital and Heart Center in New York.He is Director of the Angiographic Core Laboratory at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation

Education & Training
University of Sheffield Medical School (UK)
Residency: University of Cambridge (UK)
Doctorate in Philosophy: University of Oxford (UK)
Post-doctoral Fellowship: Stanford University
Residency: Stanford University Medical Center
Fellowship: Stanford University Medical Center
Fellowship: Mount Sinai Medical Center

Honors and Awards
CRF/TCT – Best Coronary Case of TCT 2019
EuroPCR – “PCR’s got Talent” # 1 ranked scientific submission (1stof 1018)
Columbia University Louis V Gerstner Jr. Scholar
CRF/TCT Thomas J Linnemeier Spirit of Interventional Cardiology Runner-up
Best of Basic Science, American Heart Association
Northwestern Cardiovascular Young Investigator 3rd Place

Columbia University Paul Marks Scholar
American Heart Association Young Investigator
(Council on Functional Genomics and Translational Biology)
American Heart Association Peripheral Vascular Disease Award
(Council on Peripheral Vascular Disease)

Stanford Cardiovascular Medicine Outstanding Clinical Fellow Award
Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Gerald M Reaven Award (Basic Science)
Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Young Investigator Award (Basic Science)
American College of Cardiology Young Investigator Award
(Molecular and Cellular Cardiology)
British Atherosclerosis Society/British Society for Cardiovascular Research
Young Investigator Award (Basic Science)
British Cardiovascular Society Young Researcher Award (Clinical Science)
UK Vascular Society Sol Cohen (Founder’s) Young Investigator Award
William R Miller Senior Scholar– St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Christ Church College Senior Scholarship
Wellcome Trust Fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine
University of Sheffield School of Medicine Valedictorian (Gold Medal)- Final MB ChB
Honors and Distinction Final MB ChB
Dr. Mark Gregory Baker (Ashby De La Zouch) Prize in Medicine and Surgery
Glaxo Wellcome Prize in Basic Clinical Sciences
Distinction Genito-urinary, Endocrine, Reproduction, Gastro-intestinal, Liver
Distinction Hematology, Immunology, Genetics, Oncology
University Overseas Scholarship for academic excellence
Ontario Scholar for academic excellence

David Lee, MD

Scientific Advisor

Clinical Focus
  • Cardiology (Heart)
  • Interventional Cardiology
Academic Appointments
Administrative Appointments
  • Director, Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program, Stanford University Medical Center (2005 – Present)
  • Director, Interventional Platform/Cardiac Catheterization and Intervention Laboratories, Stanford University Medical Center (2007 – Present)
Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations
  • Member, California State STEMI and Stroke Technical Advisory Committee (2020 – Present)
  • President, Western States Affiliate, American Heart Association (2016 – 2020)
Professional Education
  • Board Certification: American Board of Internal Medicine, Interventional Cardiology (2016)
  • Fellowship: Stanford University Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship (1998) CA
  • Residency: Stanford University Internal Medicine Residency (1995) CA
  • Medical Education: University of Minnesota School of Medicine Registrar (1992) MN
  • M.D., University of Minnesota, Medicine (1992)
  • S.B, M.I.T., Biology (1987)

Paul Teirstein, MD

Scientific Advisor

Paul Teirstein, MD, is the chief of cardiology and director of interventional cardiology for Scripps Clinic and director of the Scripps Prebys Cardiovascular Institute for Scripps Health. He received training at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Stanford University, the Mid-America Heart Institute, and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Teirstein joined Scripps in 1987 and is the founder and director of the interventional cardiology program at Scripps Clinic. Through this program he is leading the way in training a new generation of interventional cardiologists.

With a primary focus on complex coronary interventions and new technology development, Dr. Teirstein has played an active role in the initial development and clinical investigation of coronary stent procedures, rotablator atherectomy, transluminal extraction atherectomy, coronary angioscopy and the utilization of cardiopulmonary support. Dr. Teirstein pioneered the first effective treatment for restenosis (low dose radiation therapy) and was one of the early investigators of medicated stents. Recent areas of investigation include new technology for minimally invasive transcatheter aortic valve replacement (PARTNER trial) and transcatheter treatment of hypertension (Simplicity trial).

The author of numerous publications, Dr. Teirstein has lectured throughout the world on state-of-the-art interventional cardiology techniques. He is an internationally recognized leader in cardiology and has received countless awards for both research and clinical excellence. Dr. Teirstein currently performs in excess of 800 stent procedures per year and maintains an active clinical research unit at Scripps Clinic, where he strives to offer patients the most advanced cardiovascular care available worldwide.

He is also a member of multiple professional societies including the American Heart Association, the Society of Cardiac Angiography and Interventions, and is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology.

David R. Holmes, Jr., M.D.

Scientific Advisor

David R. Holmes, Jr., M.D., is the Scripps Professor in Cardiovascular Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in honor of Dr. George Gura, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. He has been a member of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine for 40 years, primarily involved in interventional cardiology, electrophysiology and pacing, patient care and cardiovascular education. Dr. Holmes is an interventional cardiologist and very much enjoys the practice of interventional cardiology taking care of patients with all types of cardiovascular diseases. He has been involved in multiple research studies both as a clinical investigator and as the principal investigator. He was the director of Electrophysiology and Pacing, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation from 1981 to 1985 and then became the director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory from 1984 to 2003. 

His subspecialty interests include the development of strategies for stroke prevention in the setting of nonvalvular atrial fibrillation, treatment of pulmonary vein stenosis, valvular heart disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and acute and chronic coronary artery disease.

Bruce Samuels, MD

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Samuels is a clinical and interventional cardiologist specializing in the care of patients with a broad range of cardiac conditions. His office and hospital based practice involves the care of both chronic and acute cardiac conditions – including coronary disease, congestive heart failure, valvular heart disease and arrhythmias. In addition to his clinical practice in coronary intervention, Dr. Samuels has actively participated in numerous interventional trials including IVUS guided therapy, functional measurement and microvascular disease. He is also working closely with the Women’s Heart Center based at CSMC, working as the lead interventionalist of the active coronary reactivity research there.

Credentials
  • Education: Stanford University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City
  • Residency: L.A. County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
  • Fellowship: General Cardiology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.  Interventional Cardiology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
  • Board Certification: Internal Medicine; Cardiovascular Diseases; Interventional Cardiology
Other Professional Accomplishments:

As co-chair of a 30 day readmissions task force, he has helped to shape policy for CSMC in its efforts to improve quality delivery of care. He has frequently been invited as faculty to many scientific meetings and is a sought after speaker for numerous peer educational platforms
He has published extensively in peer reviewed journals in the fields of interventional cardiology, microvascular disease and angina. He continues to participate in a wide range of interventional and clinical cardiology trials.

After serving as chief resident in medicine at L.A.County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Dr. Samuels completed his fellowship in cardiology and interventional cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He has participated in a wide variety of interventional and non-interventional clinical trials.

  • Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine UCLA.
  • Staff Cardiologist, Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute
  • General and Interventional Cardiology

He is married and is the proud father of three sons; his outside interests include contemporary art and long distance running.

Charles Sodini

Chair of Technology Advisory Board

Charles G. Sodini received the B.S.E.E. degree from Purdue University, and the M.S.E.E. and the Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Sodini began his career as a member of the technical staff at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, where he worked on the design of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM). He joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1983, where he is currently the LeBel Professor of Electrical Engineering.  His research interests are focused on medical electronic systems for monitoring and imaging.  These systems require state-of-the-art mixed signal integrated circuit and systems with extremely low energy dissipation.  He is the co-founder of the Medical Electronic Device Realization Center at MIT.

Along with Prof. Roger T. Howe, he is a co-author of an undergraduate text on integrated circuits and devices entitled “Microelectronics: An Integrated Approach.” He also studied the Hong Kong/South China electronics industry in 1996-97 and has continued to study the globalization of the electronics industry.

Dr. Sodini was a co-founder of SMaL Camera Technologies a leader in imaging technology for consumer digital still cameras and machine vision cameras for automotive applications.  He has served on a variety of IEEE Conference Committees, including the International Electron Device Meeting where he was the 1989 General Chairman.  He has served on the IEEE Electron Device Society Administrative Committee, was president of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society from 2002-2004 and was the Chair of the Executive Committee for the VLSI Symposium from 2006-2014.  He serves on a variety of industry boards and is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Keith Fife

Technology Advisory Board

Keith Fife received the Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University as a Hertz Foundation Fellow researching advanced imaging devices.

Keith co-founded SMaL Camera Technologies to develop image sensors and systems for consumer and automotive imaging. He was the Chief Designer at Ion Torrent, Life Technologies and Thermo Fisher developing high throughput DNA sequencing chips. He was Chief Technology Officer for Butterfly Network delivering Ultrasound on Chip technology to the market using MEMS-based transducer arrays integrated with CMOS. He served as Chief Technology Officer for Quantum Si developing the chips and manufacturing processes for protein sequencing. He has served as a technical advisor to Cypress Semiconductor, 4Catalyzer and Hyperfine and is a Founding Advisor for Chromatic, developing products in the high-tech healthcare space. Keith has served on various academic programs including the ISSCC technical program committee for IMMD.

Keith has several patents and publications in digital and analog IC design, image sensors, cameras, DNA sequencing, Ultrasound imaging, and MRI. His company won “Best of CES” in 2001 and the “World’s Thinnest Camera” from Guinness World Records in 2002. The Butterfly IQ was listed as one of the 100 greatest innovations of 2018 by Popular Science and won several medical design awards.

Bill Bidermann

Technology Advisory Board

Mr. Bidermann brings more than a quarter-century of engineering experience to bear on the management and technical issues confronting start-up and established companies in the computer industry. His career has been marked by successful engagements at some of the biggest names in the technology arena, as well as stints with aggressive young firms poised to deliver new innovations to the marketplace. Mr. Bidermann specializes in semiconductors, embedded systems and ASIC and many other areas. Mr. Bidermann is currently the President of BK Associates. Past positions include VP of Engineering for Airgain, Inc., Sr. VP for Zeebo, Inc., Executive VP of Nuelight Corp, VP of Engineering and Sensor Development for Pixim, Inc. among others. Mr. Bidermann received his BS, MS, EE/CS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.