Download ASE SPEAKER BIOS Roberto Lang, MD, FASE, FACC, FAHA, FESC

ASE SPEAKER BIOS
Roberto Lang, MD, FASE, FACC, FAHA, FESC, FRCP, is
currently the Director of the Noninvasive Cardiac
Imaging Laboratories at the University of Chicago,
Associate Director of the Cardiology Fellowship
training program, and Professor of Medicine and
Radiology at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
He has published more than 550 manuscripts on
cardiac imaging and physiology during his career as
well as 100 book chapters and nine books. Dr Lang
has been a pioneer in the development of threedimensional transthoracic and transesophageal
echocardiography, a non-invasive technique that is
currently used worldwide to diagnose heart disease.
He serves as a manuscript review consultant for most
cardiology peer-reviewed journals and on the
editorial boards of the Journal of the American
College of Cardiology (imaging), Circulation
Cardiovascular Imaging, Journal of the American
Society of Echocardiography, and the European
Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging. Lang’s major research interests are the clinical utility of
noninvasive techniques in assessing left ventricular contractile state and Three-Dimensional
Echocardiography. He is Past President of the American Society of Echocardiography and has
given the Edler Lecture and the Honorary Euro-Lecture of the European Society of
Cardiovascular imaging.
Federico M. Asch, MD, FASE, is Director of Cardiac Imaging Research at MedStar Health
Research Institute and Washington Hospital
Center and is Associate Professor of Medicine
(Cardiology) at Georgetown University in
Washington, DC. He received his medical degree
from the University of Buenos Aires and
completed residency and fellowships at
Georgetown University and Cardiovascular
Institute of Buenos Aires.
Dr. Asch is actively involved in various
professional organizations. At ASE he Chairs the
Guidelines and Standards Committee, is a
member of the Board of Directors and the
International Relations Advisory Committee, has
participated in the Scientific Sessions Program
Committee and is the ASE representative to the
ECOSIAC Board of Directors. For ACC, he is a member of the Digital Steering Committee
and the Personalized Longlife Educational Task Force. Dr. Asch specializes in the use of
echocardiography in multicenter clinical trials. Among other studies, he is principal
investigator of GenTAC, a national registry of patients with genetically-related thoracic
aortic aneurysms and is co-principal investigator of the World Alliance Societies of
Echocardiography (WASE) Normal Values Study, which seeks to determine normal
echocardiographic values in populations of different races and ethnicities worldwide.
His areas of interest are interventional echocardiography, diseases of the aorta,
myocardial viability, cardiomyopathies and valvular heart disease. In addition to being a
frequent speaker at national and international conferences, Dr. Asch has published
several articles in peer-reviewed journals including NEJM, Circulation, JACC, JASE, and
American Heart Journal.
Jose Banchs, MD, FASE, FACC, is an Associate
Professor of Medicine and Cardiology faculty for the
University of Texas-Houston, currently the Medical
Director of the Echocardiography Laboratory at MD
Anderson Cancer Center. In his tenure as lab director,
the lab has doubled the study volumes but also
transformed into a quantitative driven center.
His training and research experience focused in the
use of tissue characterization with ultrasound and
myocardial perfusion echocardiography in
comparison with nuclear stress testing. Dr. Banchs has
several funded clinical trials ongoing, mainly in the
use of vasodilator stress with ultrasound imaging and
the use of deformation measures with myocardial
stress.
He currently serves as Chair of the American Society
of Echocardiography Foundation (ASEF), and has
participated in ASEF humanitarian missions and
educational events in Vietnam and China.
Ana Barac, MD, PhD, is Associate professor of
Medicine and Oncology at Georgetown University and
a director MedStar Heart and Vascular Institute’s
Cardio-Oncology program. Her clinical and research
interests focus on the mechanisms and treatment of
cardiac complications of cancer therapies and the use
of cardiac imaging in evaluation and monitoring of
patients undergoing cancer treatment. Dr. Barac has
advanced clinical training in echocardiography and
cardiac MR, and basic science research background in
cell signaling pathways. She previously was a research
fellow at the National Institutes of Health. In 2013, she was awarded a KL2 Scholar Award from
the Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science for
investigations of cardiovascular toxicity in patients with breast cancer and BRCA mutations using
echocardiography.
Dr. Barac was part of the writing committee of the American Society of Echocardiography expert
consensus document for multimodality imaging evaluation of adult patients during and after
cancer therapy. She co-chaired the first American College of Cardiology Cardio-Oncology
Intensive in 2015 and was appointed chair of the new ACC Cardio-Oncology Council. Dr. Barac
has published in major cardiology and oncology journals and serves on the editorial boards of
the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the Journal of Cardiovascular Translational
Research and the Cardio-Oncology journal.
Dr. Javier Ganame, MD, PhD, FASE is currently
an Associate Professor of Medicine at McMaster
University in Hamilton, Ontario. His clinical focus
is on adult congenital heart disease and
management of cardiac diseases in pregnancy as
well as cardiac imaging with echocardiography
and MRI. He is the Director of The
Echocardiography Laboratory at St Joseph’s
Healthcare.
He attended medical school and completed
cardiology residency in Cordoba, Argentina. He
then did a fellowship in echocardiography at the
University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium. He
completed a PhD in medical sciences focusing on
the use of novel echocardiographic methods to
detect early ventricular dysfunction in pediatric
heart disease at the University of Leuven, Belgium. At the same time he did three years
of training in cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. He then was a staff cardiologist and
assistant professor at the University Hospitals Leuven and University of Leuven,
Belgium. In 2010, he moved to Hamilton, Ontario and became faculty at McMaster
University.
Dr. Ganame is heavily involved in residents and echo fellows education as well as
undergraduate education. He is the cardiology unit planner for the Faculty of Health
Sciences.
His research focuses on cardiac imaging, use of new imaging modalities to assess
ventricular function, and adult congenital heart disease. Dr Ganame has published more
than 50 peer-reviewed publications including guideline papers and wrote several book
chapters on the evaluation of ventricular function with advanced imaging modalities.
Rachel Marcus, MD has worked in the echo lab at
Washington Hospital Center for 15 years. In addition
to teaching cardiology fellows to perform and
interpret TTE and TEE, she participates in the
structural heart disease program at this hospital, and
is part of the staff of the Cardiovascular Core Lab. She
is also the medical director of LASOCHA (Latin
American Society of Chagas), providing outreach,
screening, and treatment to Latin American
immigrants to the Metropolitan Washington DC area,
and has supported Chagas disease research in Bolivia,
where she has performed echocardiograms on Chagas
patients as part of a cohort study.
Julio E. Pérez, MD, FASE, FACC, FACP, FAHA, is
currently the Director of Echocardiography at
Barnes-Jewish Hospital at Washington University
Medical Center and Professor of Medicine at
Washington University School of Medicine, in St.
Louis, Missouri. He completed his medical
degree, fellowship, and residency at the
University of Puerto Rico and a fellowship
program in Cardiovascular Research at
Washington University.
His areas of interest are echocardiography,
assessment of myocardial perfusion by
ultrasound, non-invasive evaluation of coronary
artery disease, dobutamine stress
echocardiography, cardiac ultrasound,
myocardial, tissue characterization, and
integrated backscatter imaging.
Dr. Perez serves as a manuscript review consultant for these peer-reviewed journals:
Circulation; Annals of Internal Medicine; Annals of Thoracic Surgery; The Journal of
Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery; Hypertension; Circulation Research; The Journal of
Clinical Investigation; Diabetes; The Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research;
Veterans Administration Review Board for Cardiovascular Studies; Journal of the
American College of Cardiology; American Journal of Cardiology; European Journal of
Echocardiography; and Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography.
Dr. Perez has produced more than 190 publications, including two books and several
chapters. He also served as Associate Editor for both editions of the Washington
Manual of Echocardiography. He has received numerous awards, among his recent
awards are the following: Washington University Medical Center Alumni Association
Faculty Achievement Award; American Society of Echocardiography Richard Popp
Excellence in Teaching Award; Distinguished Educator – Clinical Fellow Mentoring
Award, Washington University School of Medicine; American College of Cardiology
Gifted Educator Award.
Juan Carlos Plana, MD, FASE is Chief of Cardiology, Cardiovascular Service Line at Texas Heart
Institute / Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, Chief of Clinical Operations of the Section of
Cardiology, Department of Medicine at Baylor College
of Medicine, Director of the Cardio-Oncology Center,
and co-Director of the Center for Advanced Cardiac
Imaging at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center. He is the
Don W. Chapman Chair in Cardiology and tenured
Associate Professor of Medicine. Dr. Plana is board
certified in Cardiology and Echocardiography. Dr.
Plana earned his medical degree from Pontificia
Universidad Javeriana, Santafé de Bogotá (Colombia).
His extensive training included internship, residency,
chief resident year and fellowship in Cardiovascular
disease and Cardiac Imaging (echocardiography and
Nuclear Cardiology) at Baylor College of Medicine.
Dr. Plana’s academic career started at the University
of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center where he
served as Director of Cardiac Imaging and Medical
Director of the Echocardiography laboratory. In 2010, he was recruited to Cleveland Clinic,
where he opened and served as Co-Director of the Cardio-Oncology center. Dr. Plana's clinical
and research interests include Cardio-Oncology, valvular heart disease, diseases of the aorta,
and advanced cardiac imaging.
The major focus of Dr. Plana’s clinical and scholarly interest is the development and application
of novel echocardiographic techniques in the early detection of cardiac dysfunction caused by
chemotherapeutic agents. His work has led to 38 reports published in the peer-reviewed
literature, as well as 8 invited reviews and book chapters.
Jose D. Rivera, RCS, CPT, is a cardiac sonographer at
Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North
Carolina, specializing in the acquisition of 2D and 3D
images, as well as pharmacologic and exercise stress
echo. In addition to instructing cardiology and cardiac
anesthesia fellows and cardiac sonography students
in cardiac ultrasound through hands-on training and
lectures, he regularly assists in the evaluation of new
ultrasound equipment and software and serves as an
echocardiography consultant for pre-clinical trials.
Mr. Rivera is a frequent speaker at echocardiography
conferences, and has been published in Circulation:
Cardiovascular Imaging, Ultrasonic Imaging, and
Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia. He was a
volunteer participant in the 2015 ASE Foundation
humanitarian mission to Tartagal, Argentina, working
with the indigenous communities in northwest
Argentina.