Marc Penn, MD, PhD (Chairman) Dr. Penn is a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist, Director for Skirball Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Laboratory and Senior Medical Director for CCF Emerging Businesses.  He has published more than 70 peer reviewed articles and is a recognized international leader in the field of cardiovascular regenerative medicine.  In addition to clinical duties, Marc manages an NIH-funded laboratory focused on identifying and optimizing molecular pathways involved in myocardial repair in order to optimize cardiac function and improve patient outcomes.  Marc is a serial entrepreneur having authored dozens of patents that have resulted in the founding of 4 companies.  Among his many awards, he has been recognized as the 1999 Irvine H. Page Young Investigator and the 2006 Cleveland Clinic Innovator of the Year.  Dr. Penn received a B.S., M.D. and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University and completed his cardiovascular training at Cleveland Clinic.

Stephen G. Ellis, M.D. – Dr. Ellis is the Section Head for Invasive Cardiology and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.  He is also an Associate of the Joseph J. Jacobs Center for Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.  He is a practicing interventional cardiologist specializing in the treatment of complex or high-risk patients, genetics and clinical trials.  Recognized as an international authority, he often has access to new treatment modalities that are not available in most hospitals.

Dr. Ellis has been selected as a Fellow in the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Academy of Sciences, and has been listed in Who’s Who in America.  As of 2006, Dr. Ellis has served as the principal investigator for 15 national or international multicenter research trials, has authored over 600 papers or abstracts, edited three textbooks of interventional cardiology, and is widely considered to be an international authority on coronary stents, the assessment of outcomes after intervention, and novel therapeutic approaches to coronary artery disease and chronic heart failure.

Stan Gerson, M.D.– Dr. Gerson has been with the School of Medicine and University Hospitals of Cleveland since 1983. Since 1995, he also has been chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology. In 1997, he was named the Asa and Patricia Shiverick- Jane Shiverick (Tripp) Professor of Hematological Oncology and, in 2003, he became the founding director of the Ohio Wright Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Gerson has been active in the stem cell, hematologic malignancies and developmental therapeutics programs. He has multiple NIH grants and more than 170 publications, 190 abstracts, 20 book chapters and seven patents in stem cells and drug discovery. His honors include invited membership in the American Association of Physicians, and the Malinkrodt Scholar award. Dr. Gerson is co-editor of the textbook Cancer Gene Therapy and the new text, Clinical Hematology, to be published in 2005. He serves on a number of Scientific Advisory Boards including the Fox Chase Cancer Center, the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Minnesota Cancer Center and the Duke Cancer Center. Dr. Gerson has served as the Chair of the Experimental Therapeutics II and serves on the Program Project Study Section for the National Institutes of Health and on numerous other review bodies for the NIH.

Dr. Gerson graduated in 1973 from Harvard College, magna cum laude, and in 1977 from Harvard Medical School, cum laude. From 1977 to 1983, he performed his internship, residency and fellowship training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Douglas W. Losordo, M.D. – Dr. Losordo is the director of the Program in Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, director of the Feinberg Cardiovascular Research Institute and the Eileen M. Foell Professor of Heart Research at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease, and interventional cardiology and is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American College of Physicians, the American College of Chest Physicians, and the Society for Cardiac Interventions and Angiography.

Dr. Losordo’s major research interests encompass angiogenesis/ vasculogenesis, progenitor/adult stem cells, tissue repair/regeneration, vascular biology, and estradiol effects on vascular tissue. A native of New York City, he received his medical degree from the University of Vermont. Dr. Losordo completed an internship, residency and fellowship at St. Elizabeth's Medical, Boston, Massachusetts where he subsequently joined the faculty, working with the late Jeff Isner to develop a program in therapeutic angiogenesis and cell based tissue repair. Dr. Losordo’s group has executed the true translational medicine paradigm, identifying novel therapeutics in the laboratory, developing these strategies in small and large animal models and designing and executing first in man clinical trials. Examples include VEGF gene therapy for myocardial ischemia and diabetic neuropathy, and CD34+ cell therapy for refractory angina and severe claudication. Dr. Losordo has trained numerous scientists and physician scientists from around the world.

Sina Y. Rabbany, Ph.D. – Dr. Rabbany is the Jean Nerken Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Director of Bioengineering at Hofstra University. He also serves as Adjunct Associate Professor of Bioengineering in Genetics Medicine at Cornel University Medical College. Dr. Rabbany received his B.S.E. cum laude, M.S.E., and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Rabbany is currently doing research in the field of cellular and tissue engineering as applied to the vascular system. One of the major obstacles in engineering vascularized tissue is induction of endothelial vessel networks. To this end, his research applies engineering principles to the advancements being made in the differentiation of embryonic stem (ES) cells toward engineering vascularized tissue. The projects range from utilizing scaffolds to promote 3-D structures which provides physical cues for cell orientation and spreading to elucidating the role of biochemical and biophysical environment on vascular cells and engineering of vascularized constructs.

Shahin Rafii, M.D. – Dr. Rafii graduated from Cornell University and received his MD degree from Albert Einstein College. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine followed by a fellowship in Hematology-Oncology at Weill-Cornell in 1992. He completed his post-doctoral training in vascular and hematopoietic stem cell biology and became Professor in Genetic Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Since then, he has been studying the role of vasculature in orchestrating homeostasis of normal and malignant organ-specific stem and progenitor cells. He is currently the co-director of Ansary Stem Cell Institute and HHMI investigator at Weill Cornell.

Warren Sherman, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.S.C.A.I. – Dr. Sherman is Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of Cardiac Cell-Based Endovascular Therapies at the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Sherman earned his Bachelor of Science degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and medical degree at the State University of New York, Upstate Medical Center. Following an internal medicine residency at the University of Rochester, he spent three years at the Oregon Health Sciences University as a fellow in cardiovascular diseases, where many of the cardiac procedures that form the foundation of modern interventional cardiology originate.

In 1983, Dr. Sherman moved to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York to investigate new techniques for treating patients with acute myocardial infarction. It was at that time that the first thrombolytics (clot-dissolving medications) were being evaluated in patients. In 1989, he shifted to a fully clinical role, and created the Interventional Cardiology Program at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. With a deepening interest in myocardial regenerative techniques, Dr. Sherman pioneered a technique for injecting stem cells into the heart. In Rotterdam in May 2001, he performed the first catheter-based injection of adult stem cells into the heart of a patient with congestive heart failure due to a previous heart attack. This technique was then brought to the U.S., where he performed a similar procedure at Mount Sinai Hospital in April 2003. As Director of Cell Therapy at Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. Sherman was the principal investigator of a multicenter clinical study of autologous skeletal myoblast injections for patients with congestive heart failure and the lead investigator on numerous translational studies. Dr. Sherman has authored or co-authored numerous publications in the emerging field of myocardial regeneration.