Advisory Board
DESMOND H. BIRKETT, MD
Professor Desmond H. Birkett, MB, BS, FACS, FRCS, FRCSEd, is Chairman, of the Department of General Surgery, at the Lahey Clinic Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and Clinical Professor of Surgery at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a graduate of Guy’s Hospital Medical School in London, England in 1963, completing his residency there in 1971, with a fellowship from Beth Israel in Boston in 1973. In 1974 he joined the Department of Surgery at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, and was Chief of Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgery at the Boston Medical Center, and Professor of Surgery at Boston University School of Medicine. In 1996 he moved to Lahey Clinic Medical Center, Burlington MA as Chair of Department of General Surgery. A member of Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES), Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT),Society for Medical Innovations and Technology (SMIT),New England Surgical Society (NESS), and Boston Surgical Society. Birkett is a Past President, and Board member of the Society of American Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons, Past President, member of Steering Committee of SMIT, President Elect of Massachusetts Chapter of American college of Surgeons, and President of Boston Surgical Society, Associate Editor of Surgical Endoscopy, Assistant Editor of Medical Invasive Therapy and Allied Technologies. He has made many significant educational, research, clinical and technological contributions to the field of surgical endoscopy. He is also widely published in his field with 92 papers and 25 book chapters. He most recently was unanimously chosen by the SAGES awards committee and confirmed by the Board of Governors to be the recipient of the SAGES Distinguished Service Award for 2007 for advancing the mission of SAGES to “bring minimal access surgery, endoscopy and emerging techniques to patients in every country”. Professor Birkett’s research interests are in Laparoscopic and Computer Enhanced Laparoscopic Instruments, and he has been a pioneer in the development of advanced laparoscopic instrumentation and techniques, including 3D laparoscopy, as well as laser surgery techniques in minimally invasive therapy.WILLIAM BRADLEY, MD
Professor William G. Bradley, Jr., MD, PhD, FACR, is Professor and Chairman, Department of Radiology, at UCSD. He received his BS at Caltech and his PhD at Princeton, both in Chemical Engineering. He received his MD and did his Radiology residency at UCSF.A highly respected research and diagnostic radiologist with a strong personal research interest in neuroradiology, Bradley has published more than 168. articles, 52 book chapters and 19 books, including Magnetic Resonance Imaging (3rd Edition), co-edited with David Stark, the major textbook in MRI, now in its third edition. He received the "Best New Book in Bio and Medical Sciences" award from the Association of American Publishers for the first edition in 1988. He has helped develop many innovative magnetic resonance protocols to provide meaningful biological indices relevant to function and dysfunction, including measuring blood flow and enhancing medically relevant magnetic resonance contrast. In addition, his primary research focus has been on the use of MRI in the brain, concentrating on stroke, hemorrhage, multiple sclerosis, and tumor characterization and improved resection using intraoperative MRI. His work on normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) – one of the few treatable causes of dementia – has shed light on both its etiology and its diagnosis.
He was honored with the Gold Medal of the ISMRM in 1993 and that of the RSNA in 2003. He served on the Board of the Research and Education Foundation of the RSNA 1995-2001 and currently chairs the Fund Development Committee of that society. He was on the Board of Chancellors of the American College of Radiology where he chaired the Commission on Neuroradiology and MRI from 1999 to 2005 and served as Vice President 2005-2006.THOMAS BRADY, MD
Professor Tom Brady, MD, is the L. L. Robbins Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School and the Vice Chairman and Director of Radiology Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He is the Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Imaging and Intervention and the Director of the Cardiac MRCT Program at MGH. He serves as a senior consultant to the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT – a consortium of the Harvard Medical School and its key hospitals, MIT, the Draper Laboratory, Boston University and the Boston Medical Center), focusing there on cardiovascular MRI and CT imaging as well as being co-Leader there of the Cardiovascular Disease Program. He is the principal investigator on grants from NIH, CIMIT and industry. Dr. Brady is past president of the ISMRM and has received both the Gold Science and Silver Service Medals from that Society. He was the inaugural (1981) Director of Clinical MRI at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and established and led the MGH NMR Center from 1988-1998. From 1985 to 2003, he directed the NIH Training Grant in NMR Research. Since 2003, he has directed the NIH Training Grant in Cardiac MR CT Research. Dr. Brady has published over 200 scientific articles.GARY GLAZER, MD
Professor Glazer, MD, is professor and chair of Radiology at Stanford and the Emma Pfeiffer Merner Professor in the Medical Sciences. He is also service chief of Diagnostic Radiology. . He came to Stanford in 1989 from the University of Michigan and a sabbatical at the University of Manchester. His early work in the imaging staging of lung cancer received international recognition and was adopted in the 1980s as routine clinical practice During the 18 years he has been at Stanford he has helped to build all aspects of radiological sciences in the medical center. Dr. Glazer provided the leadership that established the medical school's Richard M. Lucas Center for Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Imaging. As a result of his accomplishments, Stanford Radiology is now the home of three major NIH Centers: the Center for Advanced Magnetic Resonance Technology (CAMRT); the In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center (ICMIC); and the Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence Focused on Therapy Response (CCNE-TR). Each center provides interdisciplinary research opportunities that greatly benefit not only the Department and the School of Medicine, but also the entire University and the institutions with which it collaborates. To speed translational research, Dr. Glazer has built strong relationships with industry and has been responsible for major R&D agreements with leading corporations. This combination of outstanding people, resources, and relationships has firmly established Stanford Radiology as one of the world leaders in medical imaging. Dr. Glazer has recently become interested in unifying the fields of molecular diagnostics with in vivo imaging and is conducting bench research to provide insights in this developing area. He is highly supportive of molecular imaging and has mobilized significant resources to help build the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS). He is also actively involved in bridging genomics, imaging, and pathology, and is helping to integrate the imaging and ex vivo diagnostic arms of the CCNE-TR program.BRIAN GLENVILLE, MS
Professor Brian Glenville, MS FRCS, was until recently the Head of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. Previous to this appointment he was Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at London’s St. Mary's Hospital.A renowned clinician, educator and researcher, Professor Glenville is a Master’s Degree graduate of University College in London, and received his medical degree from University College Hospital in London. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Prof. Glenville trained extensively in cardiothoracic surgery, principally in Great Britain but also in the United States and has published more than 50 articles in prestigious medical journals as well as an impressive number of abstracts. He is the senior author of the new Handbook in Cardiothoracic Surgery, published by the Oxford University Press, heralded as a major contribution to surgical training. Professor Glenville has held and still holds impressive positions advising, amongst others, governmental bodies both in the UK and in Israel. Among many other accomplishments he performed the first successful bridge to transplant artificial heart placement in the UK (7th in the world) in 1986 and helped pioneer beating heart surgery for coronary artery bypass grafts in the UK and with a patient experience of over 1500, rivaling anything found worldwide.
FERENC JOLESZ, MD
Professor “Frank” Jolesz, MD, is the A B. Leonard Holman Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School and Vice Chairman for Research at the Department of Radiology of Brigham and Women's Hospital since 1998. He has achieved international recognition as one of the great innovators and leaders in radiological research and continues to distinguish himself with ongoing, cutting edge research in magnetic resonance imaging and image-guided therapy. Dr. Jolesz is a native of Budapest, Hungary, where he completed his medical training (including a Residency in Neurosurgery) before moving to the United States in 1979. Upon arrival in Boston, he served as a Research Fellow in Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and in Physiology at Harvard Medical School. By 1985, he had completed a Residency in Diagnostic Radiology and Fellowship in Neuroradiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital.Dr. Jolesz has been Director of the Division of Magnetic Resonance Imaging since 1988. In 1993, Dr. Jolesz established the Image-Guided Therapy Program at the Brigham & Women's Hospital, which includes an internationally recognized intraoperative MRI facility, the Surgical Planning Laboratory, and the Therapeutic Ultrasound Laboratory –the center of groundbreaking therapeutic technology development. In 2002, Dr. Jolesz was appointed Director of the Neuroimaging Core of the Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair. Dr. Jolesz maintains a research focus in basic and clinical neurosciences, magnetic resonance imaging, and image guided therapy. Along with a highly trained and dedicated research staff of over 100, Dr. Jolesz spearheads the development and implementation of innovative image processing methods and has brought several minimally invasive therapies into successful clinical application. Dr. Jolesz is also credited with developing, refining, and introducing into clinical practice the idea of direct, real time MR image-guided surgical interventions. In collaboration with key industrial partners, Dr. Jolesz has driven the development of various image-guided therapy delivery systems in current use in many centers around the world. Among these, interventional and intraoperative MRI, MRI-guided laser, cryoablation, and MRI-guided brachytherapy and MR controlled focused ultrasound are the most significant. Dr. Jolesz' pioneering research in image-guided brain surgery in particular has had an enormous impact on the fields of modern Radiology and Neurosurgery.
Dr. Jolesz has published over 300 articles in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals and has contributed many chapters and review articles in the fields of surgery, computer science, neurology, neurosurgery, and radiology. In 1995, Dr. Jolesz was further distinguished by being elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He is also the 2002 recipient of the Outstanding Researcher Award presented by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and of the Gold Medal awarded by the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.JUDA JONA, MD
Professor Juda Jona, MD received his degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch – Galveston in 1966, interned there and did his residency in surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital - Medical School and Children's Memorial Hospital. After spending a short time as a pediatric surgeon at the University of Kentucky, his main career was focused at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Dr. Jona returned to Chicago in 1995 and joined the staff of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare as Chief of Pediatric Surgery where he has been providing superb clinical care at the Evanston Hospital and at the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago to babies in Chicago, Evanston and surrounding suburbs. He is in addition a clinical Professor of Surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University. He is an international authority on the laparoscopic ‘pull-through’ procedure for Hirschsprung’s Disease.Dr. Jona was awarded the 2005 March of Dimes Jonas Salk Health Leadership Award for his exceptional leadership and outstanding contribution to improving premature and infant health. He is involved in pediatric surgical education and operative demonstrations in numerous countries. Dr. Jona has organized educational exchange programs for physicians from Eastern Europe. A recent program involves sending used neonatal ventilators to Romania. Dr. Jona leads by example and contributes directly to the well being of infants and children on a daily basis.
IGOR LAUFER, MD
Professor Igor Laufer, MD graduated from the University of Toronto in 1967 and studied Radiology at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, becoming Chief Resident in 1972. He joined the Department of Radiology at McMaster University as Assistant Professor in 1974 where he specialized in GI radiology. He became Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Radiology in 1976 and Professor in 1980. Igor was the founding Chief of the GI Radiology Section 1976 through 1997. Igor has had a distinguished career in gastrointestinal radiology. He pioneered and popularized many of the standard techniques for double-contrast barium studies including the double-contrast esophagram, the double-contrast upper GI, and the double-contrast barium enema. His list of firsts includes the radiological descriptions of the early manifestations of many inflammatory and neoplastic conditions in the GI tract, including early cancer, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease and various forms of esophagitis and gastritis He is the author of more than 200 original articles in refereed journals, more than 40 book chapters and two textbooks, Double Contrast GI Radiology, which has gone through 3 editions, and the Textbook of GI Radiology. Laufer was the President of the Society of Gastrointestinal Radiology in 1985 and was named “Physician of the Year” by the National Foundation for Ilietis and Colitis for the work he did on the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease. In 1991 he was awarded the Walter B Cannon Medal for outstanding contributions to the practice of GI Radiology. He has lectured in over 250 Visiting Professorships and Refresher Courses all over the world, including 15 honorary lectureships.ROBERT LENKINSKI, PhD
Professor Bob Lenkinski, PhD, is Professor of Radiology at the Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Vice Chairman and Director of Research of the Department of Radiology at the BIDMC. His laboratory focuses on novel contrast agents and detection technology for magnetic resonance imaging and MR spectroscopy. He has become very involved in molecular imaging. Professor Lenkinski also has experience with design and construction of specialized RF coils for both proton and multi-nuclear MR imaging. He is a co-founder of the Center for Imaging Technology and Molecular Diagnostics at the BIDMC. Professor Lenkinski received his early education in Toronto and his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Houston in 1973 and he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania as Associate Professor of Radiological Science in 1987 and was appointed Professor in May 1994. At U Penn he was responsible for the design of several RF coils that were adopted by industry as well as being responsible for the world’s first very high field (4T) human MR imaging system. In 1999 he left U Penn to become Professor of Radiology at the Harvard School of Medicine and the Director of Experimental Radiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr Lenkinski has had numerous appointments in Scientific and Professional Societies and on National Scientific Committees including panels of the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. He is the author of over 175 papers, book chapters and reviews and editorials and has a number of patents pending.REUBEN MEZRICH, MD, PhD
Professor Reuben Mezrich, MD, PhD is the Chairman of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and is Chief of Diagnostic Radiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He joined the University of Maryland from Harvard Medical School, where he was Associate Professor and Director of Technology at the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), and an attending radiologist at Brigham & Women's Hospital. He also concurrently served as a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and at the Sloan School of Business. An innovator in radiology and imaging, Professor Mezrich spent the first half of his career as an electrical engineer, developing and improving technology in the lab. He holds 25 patents, many of which were obtained before he became a physician. Before CT and MRI came into wide use, Professor Mezrich invented an ultrasound technique that could produce real time video images of the human body. That technology was featured the Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology as one of the most important developments in biomedical engineering over the past 50 years. He was also one of the first, if not the first, to implement a cardiac gating system on an MR system.As an electrical engineer at Johnson and Johnson, Dr. Mezrich developed ultrasound mammography systems to detect breast cancer. While testing this technology, Dr. Mezrich discovered that he enjoyed working with patients even more than working in the lab. And that led to his decision to enter medical school at the age of 38. From 1996 to 1999, Dr. Mezrich was an attending radiologist and associate professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to serving as chief of emergency radiology, Dr. Mezrich was the interim Chairman of the Department of Radiology. Prior to that, he was professor of bioengineering at Rutgers University, and an associate professor of bioengineering at Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Medical School. He was also director of magnetic resonance imaging and an attending radiologist at RWJ University Hospital St. Peter's Medical Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Dr. Mezrich received a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and he received his M.D. from the University of Miami.
MURRAY MILLER, MD
Dr. Murray Miller received his medical degree from the University of Manitoba in 1982 and his residency in radiology at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, where he was Chief Resident in 1987. He has served as Chief Radiologist at a number of Hospitals and Health Centers in Greater Toronto, and as a managing partner at a number of Medical Centers, where he has been very involved as President of the Medical Staff. In addition he has been involved as an advisor to and in the executives of the Ontario Association of Radiologists, the Ontario Medical Association, the Council of Medical Imaging, the Institute of Clinical and Evaluative Sciences, the Ontario Breast Screening Program and the Canadian Institute for Health Information Telematics and Informatics Working Group. He has as a consultant to industry, specifically for a number of medical imaging and software vendors. Dr Miller is the author of a number of publications, including works on mammography screening and standards for teleradiology.DAVID NORMAN, MD
Professor David Norman, MD, Professor of Radiology and former Chief of Neuroradiology at UCSF retired this year after a long and prolific career. Norman attended Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA, and University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. He completed his radiology residency at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University Medical Center. Following military service in Vietnam and Denver.Norman completed a neuroradiology fellowship at UCSF with his mentor and long-time partner and friend, Hans Newton, MD. Newton hired Norman to oversee a new device, the EMI (CT) scanner—only the third installed unit of its kind in the U.S. His career skyrocketed, and Norman became a leader in his field of neuroradiology, defining many of the concepts now taken for granted in CT and MR. Widely published, Norman is a talented writer who addressed relevant clinical topics and basic research skills that were a model for the time. His 1981 article on dynamic computed tomography published in the American Journal of Roentgenology was one of the first to detail the basis of the perfusion techniques in use today. In that article, he wrote presciently, “The concept of corrected mean transit time (MTT) applied to rapid sequence scans after intravenous bolus injection of contrast material provides quantitative data on hemispheric flow.” Twenty-five years later MTT maps are used every day in the reading room. Norman was integral to the development of new interventional angiographic techniques, and when MR imaging came on the scene, he soon made a name for UCSF in this emerging technology as well. He was among the first to highlight the use of MR imaging in the spine, and his many subsequent contributions have contributed to current understanding of many disease states. He has authored or co-authored over 200 refereed manuscripts.
An excellent speaker and teacher, Norman was the driving force in developing CME courses at UCSF and he initiated the concept of the visiting fellowship. He remains an innovator and visionary, able to see trends in medicine around the corner before everyone else. He had the foresight to establish MR protocols before anyone had invented the term. When interventional techniques were developed for the treatment of aneurysms, he recruited the group led by Grant Hieshima, MD, to form here at UCSF what would become one of the best-known neurorinterventional programs in the world.NORBERT PELC, PhD
Professor Norbert Pelc, ScD, is Professor of Radiology and Bioengineering and Associate Chair for Research of the Radiology Department at Stanford University as well as Professor of Electrical Engineering (by courtesy). He received his doctorate in Medical Radiological Physics from Harvard in 1979. His dissertation was on 3D reconstruction from projections, with application to positron emission tomography (PET) and x-ray imaging. From 1978 until 1990 he worked at GE Medical Systems in the Applied Sciences Laboratory as a Senior Physicist and as the Manager of this group. During his tenure at GE he was involved in research and advanced development in all medical imaging modalities but was instrumental in the developments of GE’s computed tomography (CT), digital x-ray imaging, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems. Dr. Pelc moved to Stanford in 1990 where he is involved in research in biomedical imaging, including improvement of image quality, reduction of acquisition times, and the development of new systems and novel clinical applications by the use of innovative acquisition and data processing techniques, and the evaluation of new imaging technologies. He is a recognized leader in this field. He is currently concentrating on CT and hybrid imaging methods.Professor Pelc has many years of experience in mentoring junior physics/engineering faculty and graduate students/post-docs. He also has significant experience in developing and managing research and education programs. He is a frequent reviewer for funding agencies and served on the Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). He is active in many scientific societies and is currently serving on the Science Council of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). He has numerous awards including being named a Fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) and a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).
Dr. Pelc has more than 150 peer reviewed publications and 74 issued US patents.ITAMAR RAZ, MD
Professor Itamar Raz, MD, is the Head of the Diabetes Unit at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. He received his MD from the Hebrew University in 1980 and then completed post graduate studies at Hadassah Medical Center, where he serves as Director of the Hadassah Center for the Prevention of Diabetes and heads the Diabetes Clinical Research Center studying the efficacy of different and novel therapies for diabetes, as well as the Hadassah Diabetes Research Center which focuses on experimental and innovative therapies for diabetes. In addition, he is the Past President of the Israel Diabetes Association, the Head of the Israel National Council of Diabetes and the President of D-Cure, a foundation that supports research in the field of diabetes. He is also the Past President of DIRECT - Diabetes International Research and Educational Co-operative Team, a group of professional physicians from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe as well at the Mediterranean, who aim to develop ways to help prevent and control diabetes and enhance the quality of life of those suffering from diabetes. He is the Past European Country Representative to the international Diabetic Federation He serves on several advisory boards and is a member of several editorial boards, including the Israeli Medical Association Journal (IMAJ).Professor Raz has published extensively in the area of Diabetes Mellitus with over 170 publications to his credit. His research interests have focused on the pathologic mechanisms leading to diabetic complications, mainly the relationship to vasoactive peptide. A large part of his research is searching for the pathophysiology of beta cell dysfunction and loss in diabetes. As president of the Israel Diabetes Research Group, he collaborates with 18 other diabetologists in Israel, conducting clinical research aimed at improving the treatment of diabetic patients.
In addition to his research, Professor Raz maintains a very active clinical program at Hadassah Hospital.MARTIN ROCHE, MD
Dr. Martin Roche is Chief of Orthopaedics at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and Surgical Director at Holy Cross Orthopaedic Institute. A native of Ireland, Dr. Roche attended the National University of Ireland where he graduated with Honors in 1985. He went on to earn his Medical Degree with honors at the University of College Cork Medical School 1990. He received his orthopaedic training at the University of Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital where he completed surgical residency in 1996. He joined Holy Cross Hospital in 1996 and has since performed thousands of reconstructive joint procedures. Dr. Roche is a board certified orthopaedic surgeon, and serves as Consultant and Team Physician for Florida Marlins and the Playball Baseball Academy. He is a pioneer in minimally invasive techniques for joint replacements, robotics, and sensor applications. He specializes in advanced Autologous cartilage implantation for the knee. He is an international speaker and surgical instructor for joint replacements, and advanced surgical techniques.MURRAY B UROWITZ, MD
Professor Murray Urowitz, MD, FRCPC, FACP, graduated from the University of Toronto Medical School then interned and did a fellowship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, He returned to the University of Toronto to work in Rheumatology and is currently Director of the University of Toronto Lupus Clinic, Professor of Medicine, Senior Staff Physician, Toronto Western Hospital and Senior Scientist with the Toronto Western Hospital Research Institute. He is also Medical Advisor to the Ontario Lupus Association and Principal Investigator for the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) Registry for Atherosclerosis in Systemic Lupus Erythmatosis (SLE), and is the Clinical Director, Centre for Prognosis Studies in the Rheumatic Diseases, part of the UHN Arthritis and Autoimmunity Research Centre. He was the Associate Dean of the Medical School responsible for Post Graduate Medical Education for ten years.Professor Urowitz’s research has concentrated on Systemic Lupus Erythmatosis (SLE), a chronic autoimmune disease in which the body's own defense system attacks otherwise healthy tissue, commonly known as Lupus. Dr. Urowitz's contributions to these areas are numerous. In order to introduce scientific rigor and systematic analyses to the study of SLE, a complex multi-system, chronic disease, Dr. Urowitz established a cohort of SLE patients in 1970 who were followed prospectively, examined by clinical and immunological measures according to a rigorous, predetermined protocol carried out at defined intervals. This became one of the largest such databanks in the world and culminated in the establishment of the Centre for Prognosis Studies in The Rheumatic Diseases, which Dr. Urowitz directs, and where SLE patients are followed in close proximity with the research team who analyze their data. This is a novel approach to the study of chronic disease, as is his work in developing and validating a number of Outcome Measures, now used worldwide, to help define disease activity, amount of damage, and patient classification. The findings of his group have made major changes in the way lupus is being diagnosed, classified and treated, often challenging existing dogma. He has studied global disease activity and damage as well as disease in individual organs, including disease of the renals and central nervous system, osteonecrosis and atherosclerosis increasing the understanding of both the systemic and specific manifestations of the disease.
He has been awarded grants from the Canadian Arthritis Society, the Ontario Heart and Stroke Foundation and from the Canadian Institutes of Health R He has been awarded grants from the Canadian Arthritis Society, the Ontario Heart and Stroke Foundation and from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). . Dr. Urowitz has been recognized as a major contributor to lupus research and has been invited to speak about his research internationally. In his work he has fostered significant international collaboration throughout his research leading to the establishment of various indices and registries. In addition to his research activities and extensive publication record of over 225 papers published in refereed journals 38 book chapters and invited publications, Dr. Urowitz has trained and mentored scores of students, and has been recognized for his teaching excellence by a number of teaching awards at the University of Toronto and by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.ROBIN YOUNG
Robin R. Young, CFA, is founder and president of RRY Publications and Robin Young Consulting Group., a firm specializing in evaluating and promoting orthopedic technologies and companies through a disciplined and comprehensive analysis of the industry, its participants, procedures, technologies and patient trends. Mr. Young is an internationally recognized expert in his field, with over two (2) decades of experience. Over the course of his career, Young has been an active and integral part of the development, analysis and funding of several major orthopedic technologies including; spine cages, engineered allograft, living cell biomaterials, anti-adhesives, third generation hemostats, calcium based bone void products, nucleus replacement implants and dynamic stabilization implants. After a successful career as one of the leading medical technology analysts on Wall Street (Stephens, Inc., Piper, Jaffray & Hopwood, John G. Kinnard and Company), he was instrumental in forming and managing the Healthpoint Capital research and private equity practice.Mr. Young maintains relationships with over 1,000 orthopedic companies, surgeons, distributors and regulatory professionals. Through these relationships, Mr. Young has played an analytical or consultative role in the development of numerous orthopedic companies. In addition to his active consulting role, Mr. Young has organized and / or keynoted numerous industry conferences. Mr. Young is the author of over 15 published articles, over 1,000 research reports and 5 published books on various medical and investment topics. Mr. Young has been quoted in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine. He has appeared as an expert commentator on CNBC, CBS Evening News and Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser. Finally, he has taught at the graduate schools of the University of Minnesota and the University of Saint Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.