Session 7 - “How Do I…” Fireside Chats

Ana Barac, MD PhD is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Oncology at Georgetown University and the director of the MedStar Heart and Vascular Institute's Cardio-Oncology program. She specializes in advanced cardiovascular imaging and cardiovascular care of oncology patients. Dr Barac serves an Associate Editor of JACC Cardio-Oncology and a co-director of the ACC Live Course on Advancing CV Care of Oncology patient. She was the founding Chair of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Cardio-Oncology Council.

Ashutosh Wechalekar is Professor of Medicine and Haematology at University College London and Honorary Consultant Haematologist at University College London Hospital/Royal Free Hospital, London, UK. His clinical and research is focused on amyloidosis with a particular interest in cardiac amyloidosis. He leads the AL program for UK. His is the director of the Jack O’Neil Amyloidosis laboratory which is focused on amyloid typing and genomics. He leads UK’s first dedicated amyloidosis treatment clinic at University College London Hospitals and is leading development of a UK National Amyloidosis Treatment Network. He leads AL amyloidosis treatment and research in the UK. His research interests including the development of better risk stratification of the disease, reducing early cardiac mortality in AL, imaging, clonal biology and new treatment strategies in AL amyloidosis. He leads on several national and international clinical trials in AL amyloidosis and myeloma at UCL and has published extensively in the respective areas.

Dr Dang is a board-certified medical oncologist and works as part of a multidisciplinary team to care for patients with breast cancer. In her clinical research, she focuses on developing more-effective and less-toxic treatment strategies for women with this disease. Her particular interest is in evaluating combination therapies that include anti-HER2 drugs with chemotherapy in the treatment of patients with early-stage and metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer.

Dr. Hansie Mathelier is Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed fellowships in Cardiology and Advanced Heart Failure and Transplantation at the University of Pennsylvania. Her clinical areas of expertise include heart failure management, cardio-oncology, cardiac amyloidosis, and mechanical circulatory support. Her clinical interest in cardiology, particularly heart failure, was derived from her time at MIT where she studied chemical engineering. During her medical school and residency training at Johns Hopkins, she was able to integrate engineering and medicine. Her curiosity in cardio-oncologist - started with her interest in cardiac amyloidosis. She has had the privilege to be part of a Center of Excellence for Amyloidosis involving a multidisclipinary approach to the diagnosis and management of this complex disease. She has served as a sub-PI on multiple clinical trials focusing on both amyloidosis and ventricular assist device. She currently serves on the Heart Failure Disease Quality and Cardio-Oncology team for the University of Pennsylvania Health System given her interest in effective treatment of heart failure patients. Her clinical interest is the intersection between cardio-oncology and advanced heart failure.

Dr. Jennifer Ligibel is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies and Healthy Living, as well as the Director of the Center for Faculty Well-Being at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Ligibel’s research focuses on the impact of energy balance factors, such as physical activity and body weight, upon cancer risk and outcomes. She has evaluated the impact of exercise and weight loss interventions on endpoints such as biomarkers associated with cancer risk and outcomes, fitness, body composition, and quality of life in cancer patients and survivors. Dr. Ligibel is currently leading the Breast Cancer Weight Loss (BWEL) Trial, an NCI-funded Phase III clinical trial that is testing the impact of a weight loss intervention upon the risk of disease recurrence in more than 3100 overweight and obese women with early-stage breast cancer. Dr. Ligibel is also a scientific advisory board member and principal faculty for an R-25 funded workshop focused on training junior investigators interested in cancer energetics. Through this role and other research projects, Dr. Ligibel has had the privilege of working with many early-career faculty interested in the role of lifestyle factors in cancer prevention and control. Finally, Dr. Ligibel is a Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the immediate past-chair of the ASCO Cancer Prevention Committee, and the Chair of the ASCO Subcommittee on Energy Balance, which strives to raise awareness in the oncology community of the role that obesity and related factors play in influencing cancer risk and outcomes.

Dr. Kasey Leger is a pediatric oncologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital with expertise in the areas of hematologic malignancies and cancer therapy associated cardiotoxicity. Dr. Leger is a Scholar in Clinical Research of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She leads the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Myeloid Cardiotoxicity Working Group and the cardiac correlative studies embedded in the ongoing COG phase III randomized trial of CPX-351 in children with de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML). This study aims to evaluate strategies of primary cardioprotection and inform the utility of sensitive echocardiographic measures of myocardial function and cardiac biomarkers in predicting global cardiac dysfunction. Additionally, Dr. Leger is the principal investigator of the Seattle Children’s Cardiotoxicity Cohort Study assessing novel blood and imaging based markers of cardiotoxicity. Dr. Leger’s overarching research goals are to reduce the toxicity of cancer therapy through primary cardioprotective interventions and identify validated risk predictors to guide secondary/ tertiary cardioprotection and ultimately contribute to long-term leukemia cure without the burden of life-threatening heart disease during survivorship.

Dr. Kerry Reynolds is an oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She currently serves as the Director of the Severe Immunotherapy Complications (SIC) Service and the Clinical Director for Inpatient Cancer Services at Mass General Cancer Center. She joined the Harvard Medical School faculty in 2014, after completing her residency and chief residency at Massachusetts General and fellowship training in Oncology at Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care. The SIC Service is the first program of its kind in the country. Every hospitalized patient at Mass General Cancer Center who has received immunotherapy and is suspected to be experiencing an immune-related adverse event (irAE) is seen by one of the Service’s dedicated oncologists, resulting in unparalleled care for this type of toxicity. Under the leadership of Dr. Reynolds, the SIC Service now provides care to a significant number of patients every year and has grown to comprise more than 50 clinicians and researchers across 19 different areas of the hospital, including subspecialists from oncology, cardiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, and many more relevant disciplines. In addition to providing clinical care, supervising and educating trainees, and participating in administrative affairs, Dr. Reynolds leverages the work of the SIC Service to conduct research on the severe toxicities associated with immunotherapy. Her ultimate goal is to improve the lives of patients undergoing immunotherapy by uncovering irAE predictors and biomarkers, characterizing the clinical presentations of irAEs, developing best practices for managing irAEs, and elucidating the mechanisms that drive irAEs in order to develop novel therapies. To pursue this goal, she is working with Dr. Alexandra-Chloe Villani to systematically collect blood and tissue samples from patients with irAEs and analyze them using cutting-edge technologies. Dr. Reynolds has also authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and several book chapters, and she was lead editor of Facing Immunotherapy: A Guide for Patients and Their Families.

Kevin Oeffinger, MD, is a family physician, Professor in the Department of Medicine, and a member of the Duke Cancer Institute (DCI). He is founding Director of the DCI Center for Onco-Primary Care, and Director of the DCI Supportive Care and Survivorship Center. He has a long-standing track record of NIH-supported research in cancer screening and survivorship and has served in a leadership capacity in various cancer-focused and primary care-focused national committees and organizations, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Cancer Society, and the American Academy of Family Physicians. He is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The three-fold mission of the DCI Center for Onco-Primary Care are are to: (1) deliver evidence-based, patient-centered, personalized health care across the cancer continuum by enhancing the interface between cancer specialists and primary care clinicians; (2) conduct innovative research with cutting-edge technology that can be translated to the community setting; and (3) train and educate the next generation of clinicians and researchers to extend this mission. Dr. Oeffinger's clinical expertise is managing survivors of pediatric and young adult cancer.

Dr. Jacobs is the founding Director of the Cancer Survivorship Program at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center, the first adult cancer survivorship program in the US, established in 2001. She is a clinician and researcher, providing follow-up care to numerous populations of cancer survivors including testicular and survivors of childhood and young adult cancers. The Penn Cancer Survivorship Program is a national and internationally renowned clinical, research, and education focused multidisciplinary initiative, and Dr. Jacobs has led the effort to develop models of care, research initiatives, and to identify the education needed to prepare providers to care for cancer survivors. Her multidisciplinary research agenda primarily examines the long-term and late effects of cancer treatment experienced by survivors resulting from their diagnosis with particular emphasis on cardiovascular, endocrine, quality of life, and health behavior modification.

Pediatric Cardiologist and Echocardiographer Member, IC-OS Pediatric Cardio-Oncology Committee Coordinator, Pediatric Cardio-Oncology Committee, Brazilian Society of Pediatric Oncology Coordinator, Pediatric Cardio-Oncology Committee, Brazilian Society of Cardiology

Dr. Michael Fradley is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and serves as the medical director of the Penn Medicine Cardio-Oncology program. He earned his B.S at Yale University and his MD degree at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Fradley completed his residency in internal medicine through the Osler Medical Residency Program at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He then went on to complete fellowships in both cardiology and electrophysiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. As a trained electrophysioloigst, Dr. Fradley has particular interest in the diagnosis and management of arrhythmic complications associated with traditional and novel cancer therapies. He is a member of the American College of Cardiology Electrophysiology Leadership Council and the IC-OS Board of Directors.

Sebastian Szmit graduated from the Military Medical Academy in Poland. He began cardio-oncology activities in 2006 working for the Department of Oncology of the Military Institute of Medicine. He was appointed the executive editor of the Task Force of National Consultants in Cardiology and Clinical Oncology, and developed the first two Polish Recommendations on cardiovascular safety of patients with breast cancer (published in 2010) and lung cancer (published in 2012). Since 2012 he has served as the cardio-oncology consultant at the Department of Pulmonary Circulation, Thromboembolic Diseases and Cardiology, at the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education in Poland. In 2015 he was appointed as the scientific director of the "Oncology in Cardiology" training program. He is the cardio-oncology research coordinator for the Polish Lymphoma Research Group and the Polish National Oncology Network. He co-authored two educational books: "Hypertension-oncology: arterial hypertension in cancer disease" and "Cardiovascular complications in cancer patients" published in 2018 under auspices of the Polish Society of Clinical Oncology, Since 2019 he has been a Member of the Executive Committee of the Global Cardio-Oncology Summit (GCOS) and a Member of the Education & Training Advisory Committee of the International Cardio-Oncology Society (ICOS) and in 2020 he was awarded an Honorary Member of the Cardio-Oncology Society of Southern Africa (COSOSA), a Fellow of the International Cardio-Oncology Society (FICOS), and a Board Member of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Council of Cardio-Oncology. On May 26th 2021, Dr. Szmit was asked by the Scientific Council of the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education to lead the newly created "Cardiooncology Department and Echocardiography Laboratory" based at the European Health Centre in Otwock (oncology center) and the Institute of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine in Warsaw.

Stephen J. Schuster, MD is the Robert and Margarita Louis-Dreyfus Professor of CLL and Lymphoma and a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the Director of the Lymphoma Program and Director of Lymphoma Translational Research at the Abramson Cancer Center. After graduating AOA from Jefferson Medical College and completing his residency at Pennsylvania Hospital, Dr. Schuster completed clinical and research fellowships at the Cardeza Foundation for Hematologic Research. In 1989, he became a member of the Cardeza Foundation at Jefferson Medical College. Dr. Schuster joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. Since then, his research has focused on the development and application of novel immunotherapies for B-cell lymphomas and CLL, including autologous tumor-derived vaccines, autologous costimulated T-cells, radioimmunotherapy, monoclonal antibody therapy, bispecific antibody therapy, and adoptive immunotherapy using chimeric antigen receptor modified T cells (CAR-T cells) He has over 300 publications and has received numerous awards for outstanding teaching and research.

Dr. Gilchrist is an expert in cardiovascular prevention with a special focus on patients with cancer. She has a VO2 testing lab within her clinical practice, providing objective cardiorespiratory fitness assessment and personalized exercise prescriptions for patients. This is the first cardiovascular prevention program in the U.S. focused exclusively on improving fitness and mitigating existing cardiovascular risk factors in patients treated for cancer. Dr. Gilchrist’s clinical research program focuses on epidemiological studies relating fitness to cancer outcomes and clinical studies to assess the optimal intensity, duration, and timing of exercise training in the chemoprevention setting as well as during and after cancer treatment.

Dr. Neilan received his M.D. from University College Dublin and MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. He completed internal medicine residency and cardiology training at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Dublin and again at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has also completed extensive training in echocardiography at Massachusetts General Hospital and cardiac magnetic resonance at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Neilan is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, the Director of the Cardio-Oncology Program and the Co-Director of the Cardiac MR PET CT Program. Dr. Neilan has had a long-standing clinical and research interest in the cardiovascular care of patients with cancer. Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death and disability among cancer survivors and cardiovascular care for patients with cancer requires a tailored approach that is unique for each patient. He is specifically interested in how we can improve on the methods for detection of the cardiac toxicity after chemotherapy and radiotherapy and to use that information to determine how we care for patients.

Dr. Vivek Narayan, MD MSCE is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center. His clinical and research interests are specifically focused on the care of patients with advanced prostate cancer and kidney cancer. He serves as principal investigator on several therapeutic oncology clinical trials, including multiple investigator-initiated studies. He additionally seeks to improve survivorship care for patients with cancer, including the evaluation and management of cardiac toxicities of cancer therapies for prostate and kidney cancers. Dr Narayan’s early career achievements have been nationally recognized, with selection as the 2018 AUA Urology Care Foundation Outstanding Graduate Scholar Award, as well as a recipient of the 2018 Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award. He has received research funding from the American Cancer Society, American Urological Association, and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.