In the third installment of this three-part Journal Club series, Targeting Domains of Schizophrenia with Individualized Therapy, expert faculty will present the latest information on targeted treatments for schizophrenia phenotypes to help HCPs make the best choices in individualized therapies for their patients.
Joshua Kantrowitz, MD, is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York, New York. He is also the Director of the Columbia Schizophrenia Research Center.
Dr. Kantrowitz’s career has focused on understanding the causes, prevention and treatment of psychotic disorders, especially schizophrenia, with a particular focus on N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor (NMDAR) and other early stage treatments and auditory cognition. His research has demonstrated that NMDAR dysfunction may contribute to underlying neuroplasticity deficits. Dr. Kantrowitz has also conducted numerous early stage, target engagement biomarker studies with novel therapeutics using neurophysiological and neuroimaging biomarkers.
Dr. Kantrowitz has published over 80 peer-reviewed scientific papers in these fields.
During this 60-minute recorded symposium, expert panelists will discuss GD, including its less commonly reported manifestations, diagnostic pathways, and patient-centric multidisciplinary management of the disorder.
Neal J. Weinreb, MD, FACP is a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary (Bachelor of Hebrew Literature), and SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University (MD, summa cum laude). After a residency in Internal Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a fellowship and faculty position at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, NY, he practiced Hematology and Medical Oncology in South Florida. Dr. Weinreb, the director of the University Research Foundation for Lysosomal Storage Diseases in Boca Raton, FL, retired from clinical practice in May 2018. He now devotes his entire professional attention to clinical research about Gaucher Disease and Fabry Disease. Dr Weinreb is a Voluntary Associate Professor of Human Genetics and Medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Weinreb is an investigator for the Gaucher and Fabry Registries and a member of the Medical Advisory Board for the National Gaucher Foundation and of the International Working Group for Gaucher Disease.
Dr. Coy Heldermon is an associate professor of medicine and board-certified medical oncologist at the University of Florida with expertise in the treatment of breast cancer. He is a member of the American Society of Hematology and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. His research expertise is in the use of gene replacement and stem cell therapies for the treatment of inherited disorders such as lysosomal storage diseases.
Dr. Roshan Lal is a Pediatric Clinical and Metabolic Geneticist working at the Rare Disease Institute, Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC. Her clinical and research interests are geared towards improving the quality of life for children with rare genetic diseases, specifically lysosomal storage diseases and neuro-genetic disorders. Her special interest includes being involved in clinical trials using orphan drugs as well as gene therapy. She is currently the Director of Clinical Trials and Director of International Patient Consultations and Care Referrals for the Rare Disease Institute at the Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Jennifer Gordon was diagnosed with EGPA in 2014 and is the Vasculitis Patient Powered Research Network (VPPRN) Co-Principal Investigator and co-Lead Patient-Partner in the EGPA Registry. During this 30-minute CMEO Snack, Dr. Gordon will join Dr. Michael Wechsler, a national expert in EGPA. They will discuss how EGPA impacts patient quality of life and how clinicians can better detect and manage hidden symptoms of disease. Patient perspectives on delayed diagnosis, disease impact on their daily functioning, treatment options, and chronic steroid use will be included in the discussion.
Michael E. Wechsler is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at National Jewish Health (NJH) in Denver, Director of the NJH/Cohen Family Asthma Institute, and Associate Vice President for Innovation and Industry Relations at NJH. In addition to clinical work in pulmonary and critical care medicine, Professor Wechsler’s research focuses on clinical and translational asthma with emphasis on clinical trials in asthma, novel asthma therapies, bronchial thermoplasty, asthma pharmacogenomics, and management of eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (i.e. Churg-Strauss Syndrome). He has led studies focusing on novel biologic agents for asthma and related diseases, including benralizumab, dupilumab, mepolizumab, reslizumab, and tezepelumab. He has published more than 270 peer-reviewed manuscripts relating to asthma, EGPA, and eosinophilic lung diseases. He was a member of the Steering Committee and site Principal Investigator (PI) of the NIH-sponsored Asthma Clinical Research Network (ACRN, now called AsthmaNet), a multicenter asthma clinical trials consortium, and currently serves as the PI of the Denver site of the Precision Intervention in Severe/Exacerbating Asthma (PRECISE) network. A member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, he has participated in many different task forces related to the study of eosinophilic lung diseases that were sponsored by the NIH, the FDA, the European Respiratory Society, and the International Eosinophil Society. He is currently Associate Editor of the journal Chest and has served as Associate Editor of the journal Allergy and on the editorial board of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Dr. Wechsler received AB and MMSc degrees from Harvard University in Boston and an MD degree from McGill University in Montreal. He completed medical training at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and as part of the Harvard Combined Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Training Program.</br.
Dr. Gordon was diagnosed with EGPA, a form of ANCA-associated vasculitis, in 2014. She holds a PhD in Pathology and spent nearly 30 years working as an NIH-funded biomedical researcher studying neurological disorders and infectious diseases, most recently as an Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She recently retired from academia and is now Head of Research & Development at Excision BioTherapeutics, a biotech start-up company developing CRISPR-based gene editing for the treatment of HIV and other viral diseases. Jenn is active in the vasculitis community. She is a patient partner in the Vasculitis Patient Powered Research Network (VPPRN) and a member of the VPPRN-VCRC EGPA Registry Joint Steering Committee. She currently hosts the EGPA Caf? Zoom Chat through the Vasculitis Foundation. You can find her blog online at www.vasculitides.com or follow her on Twitter at @vasculitides.
Other key signaling pathways are being explored to foster development of novel therapies that can overcome challenges associated with JAKis, but clinicians need guidance on these novel therapies in order to optimize clinical outcomes. This educational initiative will survey the expanding treatment options for patients with MF, including non-JAKi agents targeting non-canonical molecular pathways.
Dr. Angela Fleischman is a physician-scientist investigating hematologic malignancies. She integrates her research with the clinical care of patients with these diseases.
Her laboratory focuses on the role of inflammation in MPN. Her overarching research goal is to identify what drives disease initiation in MPN and to ultimately translate her scientific discoveries into therapeutic benefit for MPN patients.
Her research program spans the entire translational research spectrum. In the lab, she studies the fundamental pathobiology of MPN through mouse modeling and in vitro experimentation with primary patient samples. Her clinical work informs her research, and accordingly Dr. Fleischman’s research methods primarily involve patient samples for in vitro assays of stem and progenitor function.
Aaron Gerds, MD, MS, completed his undergraduate degree, a BA in biology and chemistry, with honors at Hope College in Holland, Michigan and obtained his MD from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. He continued his Internal Medicine residency at Loyola University Hospital where he served as chief resident. In Chicago, he became interested in hematology clinical trials which led him to pursue a master’s degree in clinical research methods and epidemiology. Dr. Gerds completed his hematology and oncology fellowship at the University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle and pursued a subspecialty in treating patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) such as polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), myelofibrosis (MF), as well as other myeloid disorders. During his fellowship, he was awarded the ASBMT’s New Investigator Award.
Dr. Gerds is an Associate Professor of Medicine and the Deputy Director for Clinical Research at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute where he serves as the principal investigator for several clinical trials for the treatment of MPNs and myeloid neoplasia with a focus on developing new treatments for these patients. He is also an active member of the American Society of Hematology, participating in both the Advocacy Leadership Institute and Clinical Research Training Institute, as well as serving as Chair of the Committee on Communications, as a member of the Test Materials Development Committee, former Editor of the ASH News Daily, and current Editor-in-Chief of ASH Clinical News. Dr. Gerds serves as the Medical Director for the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Clinical Research Office and is co-PI for the Center’s LAPS grant. He is also the institutional PI for the SWOG Cancer Research Network and is part of the leadership on several national clinical trials and is the chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Myeloproliferative Neoplasms and Systemic Mastocytosis Guidelines.
Dr. Mesa was the inaugural panel chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s (NCCN) guideline panel for the first USA guidelines for MPNS (myelofibrosis, polycythemia vera and essential thrombocythemia). He has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator of more than 100 cancer clinical trials, including numerous global phase III trials. He has over 800 lifetime medical publications, with more than 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 15 book chapters, and two edited books. He is a frequently invited speaker on MPNs with over 600 such lectures and visiting professorships, nationally and internationally.
Dr. Mesa is a funded investigator of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on several projects in myeloproliferative neoplasms and has been appointed to the NCI Clinical Trial Advisory Committee. He plays a range of leadership roles with the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), and is currently elected to the Board of the American Association of Cancer Institutes (AACI), and Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
In addition to Dr. Mesa’s extensive MPN research and clinical practice, he is passionate about advancing cancer health equity and increasing minority patients’ participation in cancer clinical trials. He helped implement a mandate that each new trial at the Mays Cancer Center has a Minority Accrual Plan that includes enrollment projections and a demographic-specific toolbox with strategies for clinical investigators to promote enrollment. Before its implementation, the enrollment of Hispanics into the cancer center’s interventional studies was 46 percent; now, it is 56 percent. He is involved in numerous national initiatives to increase clinical trial diversity, including being a member of the Genentech Health Disparities Task Force, Bristol Myers Squibb Health Disparities Task Force and the Janssen Health Disparities Task Force. In March 2022, he testified on the importance of clinical trial diversity before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Dr. Mesa also co-led the Mays Cancer Center’s biennial Advancing the Science of Cancer in Latinos Conference held in San Antonio.
This CMEO Snack will aid clinicians in overcoming these inadequacies by equipping them with a clear picture of what IH is and the poor QoL outcomes it is associated with. Please join expert faculty in a discussion on how to better recognize the significant impact of IH symptoms on QoL.
Dr. Anne Marie Morse is the Director of Child Neurology and Pediatric Sleep Medicine at Geisinger, Janet Weis Children’s Hospital. She has significant clinical and research experience and interest in children, adolescents, and adults with sleep wake disorders, particularly central disorders of hypersomnolence. In addition, her research interests extend more broadly to include investigating the relationship between sleep and neurologic and neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr Morse’s commitment to sleep health extends into the community. She has developed a school-based sleep education and surveillance program called Wake Up and Learn. This program was developed to provide education about sleep health and perform school-based sleep screening to improve recognition of pediatric sleep disorders in middle and high school students. It has now expanded to include learners in college, medical school, and medical residency programs with a clinical and health plan delivery, called Sleep to Be Well. Dr. Morse envisions a world where sleep can be acknowledged as the vital sign of health, wellness, and performance that it is designed to be.
Dr. Bogan is the President of Bogan Sleep Consultants, LLC. He is also Associate Clinical Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and Associate Clinical Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC.
Dr. Bogan received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Wofford College and his MD degree from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. He served his internship and residency, as well as Chief Medical Resident, at the University of Alabama Hospital and Clinics in Birmingham. Thereafter, he completed a fellowship and assistant professorship in the Pulmonary Division of the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama School of Medicine. He has been certified by the American boards of Sleep Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Pulmonary Diseases.
Dr. Bogan has served as principal investigator on numerous clinical trials in the past and continues to do so now. He has a variety of publications and research interests that focus on topics such as narcolepsy, insomnia, sleep apnea, shift work sleep disorder, restless legs syndrome/periodic limb movement disorder, chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia, and circadian rhythm abnormality.
In this CMEO Snack entitled, Ground Broken: Novel Therapies to Manage Idiopathic Hypersomnia, expert faculty will discuss current and novel therapies in IH, efficacy and safety data from recent clinical trials, and relevant findings from the SLEEP 2023 conference.
Dr. Anne Marie Morse is the Director of Child Neurology and Pediatric Sleep Medicine at Geisinger, Janet Weis Children’s Hospital. She has significant clinical and research experience and interest in children, adolescents, and adults with sleep wake disorders, particularly central disorders of hypersomnolence. In addition, her research interests extend more broadly to include investigating the relationship between sleep and neurologic and neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr Morse’s commitment to sleep health extends into the community. She has developed a school-based sleep education and surveillance program called Wake Up and Learn. This program was developed to provide education about sleep health and perform school-based sleep screening to improve recognition of pediatric sleep disorders in middle and high school students. It has now expanded to include learners in college, medical school, and medical residency programs with a clinical and health plan delivery, called Sleep to Be Well. Dr. Morse envisions a world where sleep can be acknowledged as the vital sign of health, wellness, and performance that it is designed to be.
Dr. Bogan is the President of Bogan Sleep Consultants, LLC. He is also Associate Clinical Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and Associate Clinical Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC.
Dr. Bogan received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Wofford College and his MD degree from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. He served his internship and residency, as well as Chief Medical Resident, at the University of Alabama Hospital and Clinics in Birmingham. Thereafter, he completed a fellowship and assistant professorship in the Pulmonary Division of the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama School of Medicine. He has been certified by the American boards of Sleep Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Pulmonary Diseases.
Dr. Bogan has served as principal investigator on numerous clinical trials in the past and continues to do so now. He has a variety of publications and research interests that focus on topics such as narcolepsy, insomnia, sleep apnea, shift work sleep disorder, restless legs syndrome/periodic limb movement disorder, chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia, and circadian rhythm abnormality.