Peter Fitzgerald, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Peter Fitzgerald is the Director of the Center for Research in Cardiovascular Interventions and the Cardiovascular Core Analysis Laboratory (CCAL) at Stanford University. He has a Ph.D. in Engineering and is an interventional cardiologist. Dr. Fitzgerald has served as the Principal Investigator for over 45 clinical trials involving intravascular ultrasound. Dr. Fitzgerald has a joint appointment in the School of Medicine and Engineering. His research is focused on signal and image processing of intravascular ultrasound for plaque characterization and advanced engineering developments in signal processing and catheter device development. In addition, Dr. Fitzgerald serves as a consultant and medical/advisory board member for several biomedical device and ehealth companies in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Fitzgerald has been principle/founder of six medical device companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He serves on several boards of directors, advised dozens of medical device startups as well as multinational healthcare companies in the design and development of new diagnostic and therapeutic devices in Cardiology, Neurology and Orthopedics. Dr. Fitzgerald received his M.D. from Dartmouth Medical School and his Ph.D. in Biomechanical Engineering at Dartmouth College.

Sheldon Goldberg, M.D.

Dr. Sheldon Goldberg is Professor of Medicine and Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Medicine at Hahnemann University Hospital. After receiving his undergraduate degree from New York University and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Goldberg completed graduate medical training in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease at Harvard University. He is an internationally recognized authority in interventional cardiology, and was the principal investigator of the landmark study establishing the role of coronary artery stents in clinical practice.

Dr. Goldberg has contributed to over 100 publications in the field of interventional cardiology. His current interests involve new treatment modalities for patients with heart disease, including interventional therapy for vulnerable plaque, carotid intervention and therapy for structural heart disease. His educational interests include the use of simulation technology to train physicians in cardiovascular intervention. Dr. Goldberg has been named as one of the "Best Doctors" in America by Woodward and White, and he has frequently appeared in Philadelphia Magazine's listing of top doctors in the region.

Martin B. Leon, M.D.

Dr. Martin Leon is the Chairman Emeritus and Founder of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation^® and the Associate Director of the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy (CIVT) at Columbia University Medical Center. He is also a practicing interventional cardiologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital / Columbia University Medical Center. Dr Leon has co-authored over 1,100 publications, has performed over 7,000 interventional procedures, and has had an important impact in several areas of interventional vascular therapy. He is the Director of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics, the largest dedicated meeting in interventional vascular therapy in the world.

Dr. Leon has been 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. He also 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.

Pedro R. Moreno, M.D.

Dr. Pedro Moreno is internationally recognized in the field of Interventional Cardiology. He is widely published and is a frequent lecturer and speaker. He is currently Associate Professor of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and serves as a Director of Interventional Cardiology Research at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. As a world-renowned expert in high-risk atherosclerosis, Dr. Moreno has been a pioneer in the understanding of inflammation and plaque vulnerability. Dr. Moreno has extensive experimental research in novel diagnostic and therapeutic modalities for vulnerable plaques. His work using near-infrared spectroscopy is now acknowledged as a major advance in the elusive field of percutaneous coronary plaque characterization. Dr. Moreno received his M.D. from Javeriana University in Bogota, Columbia, and his post-doctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Cardiac Unit, Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Joseph M. Ruggio, M.D.

Dr. Joseph Ruggio has served as a Director of Spectranetics since February 1997. Dr. Ruggio is a practicing interventional cardiologist. Since June 1994, Dr. Ruggio has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Cardiovascular Associates Medical Group, Inc., a large cardiovascular professional corporation. He also serves as Chairman and President of Via Vitae, a cardiovascular disease management company, which was founded in February 1996. Dr. Ruggio served as founder and Chairman of UltiMed, Inc., a cardiovascular medical services organization, which was founded in July 1995. Dr. Ruggio was also a co-founder of Proteus, Inc. and serves on the Medtronic Business Council of Advisors. From August 1985 to December 1995, Dr. Ruggio served as Chairman of the Department of Cardiology and Director of Invasive Interventional Cardiology for FHP, Inc. Dr. Ruggio has served on the cardiovascular medical advisory panel for the National Committee of Quality Assurance and is currently co-chairman of the ACC Managed Care Advisory Committee.

Gregg W. Stone, M.D., FACC

Dr. Gregg Stone is Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and Director of Cardiovascular Research and Education at the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapies at Columbia University Medical Center. He is also Chairman of the Board of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York City, and Co-Director of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), the world's largest symposium devoted to interventional cardiology and vascular medicine.

Dr. Stone has served as the national or international principal investigator for more than two dozen multicenter randomized trials. He has performed more than 6,000 angioplasty and stent procedures, authored more than 600 book chapters, manuscripts, and abstracts and has delivered over 1,000 invited lectures around the world. His areas of expertise include, but are not limited to: interventional therapies of acute coronary syndromes and myocardial infarction; drug eluting stents; adjunct pharmacology; new device angioplasty, including distal embolic protection; and vulnerable plaque. Dr. Stone received his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, served a general fellowship in cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and a dedicated fellowship in advanced coronary angioplasty at St. Luke's Hospital, Mid America Heart Institute.

Guillermo Tearney, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Guillermo Terarney performed his graduate training in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School. His graduate research developed enabling technology for optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging in patients. Following graduate education, Dr. Tearney completed his residency in Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and is now a board certified pathologist. Since moving to MGH, his research has focused on the development and validation of new optical diagnostic technologies. His laboratory has conducted the first clinical studies using endoscopic OCT for diagnosis in the gastrointestinal tract, and intravascular OCT for characterizing atherosclerotic plaques in coronary arteries. Over the past six years, annual funding has grown to approximately $1.4M per year from a combination of industrial sources and national peer-reviewed grants, and his lab has increased from three researchers to 30. In addition, he has published 15 articles in refereed journals over the last two years. Of note, Dr. Tearney's work has been featured on the cover of prestigious journals, such as Science, Circulation, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Renu Virmani, M.D.

Dr. Renu Virmani currently serves as Medical Director, CVPath, International Registry of Pathology in Gaithersburg, MD. She is recognized as one of the leaders in the search for diagnostic and treatment therapies for Vulnerable Plaque. Dr. Virmani is also Clinical Professor, Department of Pathology at: Georgetown University; University of Maryland-Baltimore; Uniform University of Health Sciences; and Vanderbilt University. She is responsible for multiple research grants in the field of pathology — most recently, a $1.3 million grant from the NIH for Plaque Progression, apoptosis, and inflammation. Dr. Virmani is an active lecturer and has authored over 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals in the field of atherosclerosis and vulnerable plaque, stents, and other cardiovascular diseases. She has received honorary awards that include the Joint Service Commendation Medal for Outstanding Meritorious Service as Chief of Cardiovascular Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (1979 - 1981). Dr. Virmani is a member of the American Heart Association and U.S. and Canadian Academy of Pathology, and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Virmani received her M.D. from Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi University, in New Delhi, India.

Carlo Di Mario, M.D., Ph.D., FESC, FACC

Dr. Di Mario has been Professor of Clinical Cardiology, Imperial College of Sciences, Medicine & Technology in London, UK since 2003, and in that year also began consulting in interventional cardiology at Royal Brompton Hospital in London. He previously served as the Associate Clinical Director at Centro Cuore Columbus and San Raffaele Hospital, both in Milan, Italy, and as a Senior Staff Member in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Thoraxcenter, Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Dr. Di Mario has 309 publications in peer reviewed journals, and has been invited to give over 300 lectures worldwide, including the Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology, the European Congress of Cardiology, and the meeting of the British Cardiac Society and British Society of Interventional Cardiology. In the past 15 years he has co-organized live case demonstrations, and courses dedicated to Interventional Fellows. Dr. Di Mario is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Cardiology and EuroIntervention, and member of the Editorial Board of Heart (formerly British Heart Journal), Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, Cardiovascular Medicine (formerly Italian Heart Journal). He is President Elect of the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions and coordinates projects for post-specialty training in interventional cardiology.

Giuseppe Sangiorgi, M.D.

Dr. Sangiorgi is a Fellow of the Italian Society of Cardiology, the European Society of Cardiology and the American Society of Cardiac Angiography and Intervention, and a member of the Working Group on Interventional Cardiology and Coronary Circulation of the European Society of Cardiology. He served as a Fellow in Cardiovascular Disease at the Mayo Clinic and Foundation, Rochester, USA and became Research Associate in Interventional Cardiology. Dr. Sangiorgi has authored approximately 90 medical papers in major international journals, approximately 400 abstracts in international and national meetings and several book chapters in major cardiology and interventional textbooks. He is Associate Editor of Cardiology International Journal and on the Editorial Board of various medical journals. In 1998, Dr. Sangiorgi became Senior Staff member in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the Policlinico San Donato, University of Milan. From 1998 he has been assistant professor at the University of Rome and from 2005 Director of the Interventional Cardiology Program at the same University. Dr. Sangiorgi joined Centro Cuore Columbus and San Raffaele Hospital at the beginning of 2003 as Associate Clinical Director and Clinical Research Director. He is now responsible for the peripheral program in San Raffaele Hospital. In 2004 he became Medical Director of Mediolanum Cardiovascular Research, an independent CRO performing clinical trials in cardiovascular medicine.

Patrick Serruys, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Serruys has been head of the Department of Interventional Cardiology at Thoraxcenter, Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands since 1997, and previously served for nine years as Professor of Interventional Cardiology in the Interuniversity Cardiological Institute of the Netherlands. He is a Fellow on the scientific council of the International College of Angiology, the American College of Cardiology, the European Society of Cardiology, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Russian Society of Interventional Cardioangiology. Dr. Serruys is a member of the Editorial Boards of the European Heart Journal, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Circulation, as well as numerous other international publications. He has been the recipient of numerous awards over the past decade, most recently the J.B. Herrick Award of the American Heart Association in 2006 and the Arrigo Recordatie International Prize in Italy in 2007. Dr. Serruys has (co)authored over 1,300 papers and (co)edited 29 books.

Stefan Verheye, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Verheye has been on the staff of the Interventional Cardiology Unit of Antwerp Cardiovascular Institute in Antwerp, Belgium since 2000. He is Editor of the journal “Stent”, a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology, and is a member of the Belgian Working Group on Interventional Cardiology and the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions. Dr. Verheye is the author of over 40 peer-reviewed journals, seven book chapters, almost 100 abstracts, and has participated in numerous clinical and pre-clinical research studies in the field of interventional cardiology. He graduated from Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and after postdoctoral training in Belgium and Germany, served as a Fellow in cardiology and interventional cardiology with Cardiovascular Center, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe-Ziekenhuis Aalst, Belgium. In 1998, Dr. Verheye became Research Associate and Visiting Interventional Cardiologist at the Andreas Gruentzig Cardiovascular Center at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, and served as Affiliate Scientist, Division of Molecular Medicine for Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center of Emory University.

William Wijns, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Wijns has been the Co-director of the Cardiovascular Center in Aalst, Belgium since 1994 and active as an interventional cardiologist. Recently, he has been involved with the clinical applications of non-invasive coronary angiography with the use of multi-slice computed tomography. Dr. Wijns has authored over 200 publications in peer review journals and holds several positions in national and international professional and scientific organizations. Currently, Dr. Wijns is President of the European Association for Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI), and a Board member of the World Heart Federation and the European Society of Cardiology (Vice-President External Relations 2004-2006). After spending 1984 and 1985 as a Visiting Associate Professor of Radiological Sciences at UCLA, Dr. Wijns returned to the University of Louvain in Brussels where he directed the cardiac PET program and became Clinical Professor of Cardiology. His research focused on the regulation of coronary blood flow and cardiac metabolism in ischemic heart disease. Dr. William Wijns graduated in 1976 from the University of Louvain in Belgium where he trained as a cardiologist until 1981.