School of Medicine
Showing 1-45 of 45 Results
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Maryam Amirahmadi
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioDr. Maryam Amirahmadi is a microsurgery expert and postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. She obtained her Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from Hamadan University of Medical Sciences. After more than a year of experience as a Family and Emergency Physician, she spent around 4 years at the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences where she served as a pediatric and adult Cardiac Intensive Care physician and received training in cardiovascular surgery at Namazi and Faghihi hospitals. She then spent a year in the Department of Vascular Surgery at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, serving as a postdoctoral researcher and performing microsurgery on animals, with her research focused on therapeutic strategies to improve neovascularization after limb ischemia. Dr. Amirahmadi joined Stanford Cardiovascular Institute in 2022 where she is now a postdoctoral research fellow under the supervision of Prof. Philip S. Tsao, a renowned cardiovascular scientist. Her research interests and practical expertise include Microsurgery, and the effect of e-cigarette vaping on factors of inflammatory or immune pathways that can subsequently be related to the molecular mechanisms involved in angiogenesis and arteriogenesis in the murine model of hindlimb ischemia, as well as the mechanisms of e-cigarette and nicotine’s effects in augmenting Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) in rodent models of aortic aneurysm, including porcine pancreatic elastase-induced AAA. Dr. Maryam Amirahmadi and her colleagues are currently investigating the transgenerational effects of vaping/nicotine on abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) risk.
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Zahra Azizi
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioI am a medical doctor and clinical epidemiologist, presently serving as a scientist at Stanford University. My work centers on precision medicine, employing digital health, computer science, and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. I am dedicated to integrating and applying these methodologies within the medical field to generate novel insights and deepen understanding of health-related issues. My focus also extends to tackling health disparities, with the ultimate goal of enhancing patient care and reducing disease impact.
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Adrian Matias Bacong
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAdrian M. Bacong, PhD, MPH is a social epidemiologist by training. His research seeks to identify social and structural factors that underlie health inequities by race, ethnicity, and immigration status. Specifically, his work has explored the role of socioeconomic factors in explaining health disparities by immigrant legal status and visa type. Furthermore, Adrian is interested in the effects of immigration on health. He received a NIH F31 award (1F31MD015931-01A1) to examine factors affecting the health of Filipino migrants to the U.S. compared to Filipinos remaining in the Philippines.
Adrian has also examined the intersections of race, ethnicity, and immigration status among older adults. Finally, Adrian written upon the role of data disaggregation as a method of public health critical race praxis. Currently, Adrian is researching the role of social and policy level factors underlying health disparities among immigrants. -
Ming Li (Estella) Chen
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioI am an MD from Chung Shan Medical University, Taiwan. Before coming to Stanford, I obtained my MS degree in epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, where I completed graduate training in clinical, pharmacologic, and genetic epidemiology, and pursued advanced skills in biostatistics and causal inference.
My past research focused on real-world epidemiology studies using patient registries and national health insurance databases to elucidate the predictors or risk factors of immunologic diseases. For my graduate study, I conducted pharmacoepidemiology studies using electronic health record (EHR) data to elucidate the predictors of anti-drug antibodies development and its correlation to autoimmunity, to identify the generation of immunogenicity that may impact the effectiveness of monoclonal antibody therapies in individuals with autoimmune diseases. I gained experience in genetic data manipulation to investigate polymorphisms in response to monoclonal antibody therapies in asthma patients.
At Stanford, I am involved in research on the identification of molecular determinants of cardiometabolic diseases. -
Zaniar Ghazizadeh
Postdoctoral Medical Fellow, Cardiovascular Medicine
Fellow in MedicineBioZaniar completed his Internal Medicine training at Yale New Haven Hospital/Yale School of Medicine. He received his medical degree from Tehran University of Medical Sciences and spent a few years as a post-doctoral fellow at Weill Cornell Medicine and Brigham and Women’s Hospital before his residency. His research interest lies in the development of in vitro and in vivo platforms for studying heart regeneration and precision medicine. Zaniar’s work is focused on identifying the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias using several experimental systems ranging from genetically engineered animal models to human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiac cell types. His ultimate goal as a clinician-scientist is to utilize this framework for drug discovery and identifying new therapeutic strategies that can prevent or reverse specific arrhythmias.
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Sneha Goenka
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
Ph.D. Student in Electrical Engineering, admitted Autumn 2017
Stanford Student Employee, Hoover InstitutionBioSneha Goenka is a Ph.D. candidate in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University where she is advised by Prof. Mark Horowitz. Her research centers on designing efficient computer systems for advancing genomic pipelines for clinical and research applications, with a focus on improving speed and cost. She is a 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 Honoree in the Science category, 2022 NVIDIA Graduate Fellow, and 2021 Cadence Women in Technology Scholar. She has a B.Tech. and M.Tech. (Microelectronics) in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay where she received the Akshay Dhoke Memorial Award for the most outstanding student in the program.
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Bruna Filipa Gomes Botelho Quintas
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe increasing availability of very large datasets, along with recent advances in deep learning based tools for automatic extraction of cardiac traits, has led to the discovery of further common variants associated with cardiac disease. However, the genetic underpinnings of valvular heart disease remains understudied. I am interested in developing deep learning techniques to automatically extract cardiac flow information to facilitate genome-wide association studies of cardiac flow traits.
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Hiroyuki Inoue
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioDr. Inoue is a physician-scientist who is enthusiastic about bridging research findings and clinical practice.
- a board certified cardiologist with 10+ years clinical experience
- experience in 400+ cases as a main operator in percutaneous coronary intervention, catheter ablation, and cardiac device implantation
- research expertise primarily in iPSCs, genome editing, and regenerative medicine
Dr. Inoue joined the Yang lab in 2022. His research aim is the development of novel regenerative therapeutics for heart failure. -
Sneha Shah Jain MD, MBA
Postdoctoral Medical Fellow, Cardiovascular Medicine
Fellow in MedicineBioDr. Sneha S. Jain is a fellow in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. She previously was an internal medicine resident at Columbia/NewYork-Presbyterian, during which time she was selected as a Silverman Fellow in Healthcare Innovation. In this capacity, she worked with clinical and data science partners to build and deploy the technological infrastructure to identify patients with certain cardiac conditions earlier in the course of their disease. She received her MD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and her MBA from Harvard Business School. She graduated with distinction from Duke University with a BS in Economics. During her time at Harvard Business School, she worked at Moderna Therapeutics and the VC firm Flare Capital.
Her research and entrepreneurial interests focus on the development and clinical trials of digital health and machine learning to reimagine healthcare delivery models and improve patient outcomes in cardiology. -
Pik Fang Kho
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioI obtained my PhD in genetic epidemiology at Queensland University of Technology (Australia), where my research was focused on using genetic and genomic approaches to identify risk factors for endometrial cancer. During my graduate studies, I gained experience in large-scale genetic association studies and leveraging the correlation between diseases in genetic studies to identify novel genetic variants associated with endometrial cancer. I also developed expertise in various statistical genetic approaches in multi-omics data, including fine-mapping and colocalization analyses, to prioritize candidate causal variants and genes. I also gained extensive experience in genetic causal inference analysis to infer causality between risk factors and health outcomes.
My research focus since moving to Stanford has been the identification of genetic and non-genetic determinants of cardiometabolic diseases. I am currently involved in projects including large-scale genetic association studies, multi-trait analysis with correlated traits, development and validation of polygenic risk scores, integrative analyses with multi-omics data, as well as Mendelian randomization analyses to advance our understanding of the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to cardiometabolic diseases. -
Hector Rodrigo Mendez
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioDr. Hector Rodrigo Mendez is a Medical Geneticist from Argentina. Rodrigo completed a residency program in Medical Genetics at Centro Nacional de Genetica Medica – ANLIS (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and a Master’s program in Medical Molecular Biology at Buenos Aires University.
Rodrigo continued his scientific career at a German Genomic Start-up, working as a human geneticist and providing his experience in rare disorders, genomic data (WGS/WES/gene panels) analysis, variant interpretation, and its integration with a deep focus on genotype-phenotype correlation.
Rodrigo’s areas of expertise are rare disorders, NGS technology, Whole Genome Sequencing analysis, and ACMG interpretation guidelines, and his research aims are:
- Collection and analysis of clinical data through deep-learning phenotyping approaches.
- Multi-omic data integration to elucidate complex and rare genetic disorders.
- International collaborations to break down barriers to research participation amongst those who have been under-represented.
At Stanford University, under the supervision of Dr. Matthew Wheeler, he is conducting his postdoctoral research studies to achieve his scientific goals. -
Samuel Montalvo Hernandez
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioI am a clinical exercise physiologist and sport biomechanist interested in human exercise and sports performance. I am a certified performance and sport scientist (CPSS) and a certified strength and conditioning specialist with distinction (CSCS, *D) by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). In 2022, I was honored with the 2022 Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship. As a research exercise and sport scientist, I am interested in understanding the mechanical, molecular, and physiological mechanisms of human performance. Additionally, I am interested in creating new and practical training methods to improve human exercise and sports performance.
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Connor Galen O'Brien
Postdoctoral Medical Fellow, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioDr. O'Brien is a native of Menlo Park, CA. He attended medical school at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. At Columbia he was elected to both Alpha Omega Alpha and Gold Humanism Honors Societies. He completed an Internal Medicine residency as well as fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University. In his third year of fellowship, he was selected Chief Cardiology Fellow.
He is currently a post-doctoral fellow performing regenerative medicine research, specifically studying the role of exosomes in treating cardiomyopathy. In addition to his basic science research, he is also involved in human clinical trials investigating the role of stem cells in treating various forms of cardiomyopathy. -
Rushil Shah, MBBS, DNB, MHS
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioRushil Shah, MBBS, DNB, MHS is actively pursuing a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University, CA awarded by the prestigious American Heart Association AF SFRN.
Rushil Shah is currently engaged in several significant research projects at Stanford University such as Purkinje Fiber Modulation for treating Ventricular Fibrillation (VF), Magnetocardiography in patients with cardiac arrhythmias, MRI-guided Stereotactic Radio ablation for Ventricular Tachycardia, Creating an MRI-compatible Large animal isolated heart model (Langendorff’s Apparatus), and pulsed field ablation (PFA) of the heart. Up until now they were also working on developing a Shared Decision-Making Tool for AF Stroke Prevention as part of the ENHANCE-AF trial under Paul J. Wang, MD.
Rushil recently completed another three-year long Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in Cardiac Electrophysiology at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, United States. Rushil conducted translational research centered on advancements in Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging, VT Ablation, Atrial Fibrillation, Cardiac Sarcoidosis, Cardiac Sympathetic Denervation and Hypothermia Induction in the animal experiment lab at Johns Hopkins under the supervision of Harikrishna Tandri, MD, FACC.
Rushil secured his master’s degree in Medical Immunology & Molecular Microbiology from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School in Baltimore, MD, USA.
Previously, Rushil attended medical school at the Topiwala National Medical College & B.Y.L Nair Hospital in Mumbai, India and subsequently, completed his three-years of medicine residency there. Additionally, Dr. Shah has some experience of working as a Hospitalist in a Cardiology Care Unit (CCU) under the supervision of Yash Lokhandwala, MD, DM at Bandra HFH in Mumbai.
Dr. Shah recently got ECFMG-certified to actively practice medicine in the United States. Rushil is a member of the American Heart Association, Dallas, TX and the Heart Rhythm Society in Washington DC. Rushil aspires to complete his cardiology training and become a cardiac electrophysiologist here in the United States. -
Disha Sharma
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioI am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Thomas Quertermous at Stanford University. I have joined the lab with more than 7 years of research experience in the field of computational biology wherein I have worked with multi-omics data for multiple diseases to get a deeper understanding of the disease identification and progression.
My background in engineering and bioinformatics provide an excellent background for the studies proposed in this application, which proposes to investigate the genetics and genomics of smooth muscle cell biology in the context of vascular disease. I first pursued a Bachelor's in Biotechnology program at one of the premier institutes in India, Banasthali Vidyapeeth and received my degree in 2007. After qualifying with the IIT-JAM exam in 2010, I joined the Master’s in Science (Biotechnology) program at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in a program of engineering and technology. After my Master's, I joined Dr. Vinod Scaria’s lab at CSIR-IGIB as a Project Fellow. During the tenure as Project fellow from 2012-2014, I had the opportunity to work with different transcriptomics data from model organisms including zebrafish, rat and human cell lines to understand the role of long non-coding RNAs and miRNAs. I also worked on clinical datasets of autoimmune disorders. With one and half years of research experience and a UGC fellowship awarded through the NET-JRF examination, I continued working with Dr. Vinod Scaria to pursue my PhD. My research interest for the degree focused on the identification and characterization of circular RNAs, and this work has now been published in multiple manuscripts listed below. Over the years at CSIR-IGIB, I have had the chance to work on interesting ideas with multiple collaborating groups. One of them was Dr. Sridhar Sivasubbu, with whom I worked to understand the transcript-level interactions between mitochondria and the nucleus, using zebrafish as a model organism.
In view of my interest in the translational aspects of biology, I obtained the opportunity to work as part of the GUaRDIAN Consortium with Dr. Vinod Scaria and Dr. Sridhar Sivasubbu at CSIR-IGIB. This pioneering project is the largest network of researchers and clinicians in India pursuing sequencing patient DNAs to identify rare SNVs and structural variants responsible for muscular dystrophy in these patients. In the interest of advancing genomics in clinical and healthcare settings, I was selected as Intel Fellow 2019 to work for the Intel-IGIB collaboration focussing on “Accelerating Clinical Analysis and Interpretation of Genomic Data through advanced tools/libraries”. Our project was selected among top 3 from 50 premier research institutes and I was awarded the Intel-India Fellowship for a year to pursue this project. I was also part of the core team of IndiGen (Genomes for Public Health in India). With the spread of COVID-19 around the world, our group contributed by sequencing and analysing COVID19 genomes to get a better understanding of the disease and I had the opportunity to be part of the core team to analyse the viral sequencing datasets and viral assembly.
I am extremely pleased to have joined the Quertermous lab at Stanford to the study of the molecular mechanisms of cardiovascular disease. Work that I am pursuing in this laboratory, and proposed in this application, are directly in line with my personal aspiration to start an independent career in the field of scientific research to work on projects with high translational value and of interest to the public health. -
Laurens van de Wiel
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
BioLaurens van de Wiel is Dutch scientist from Berghem, The Netherlands. Laurens spent his undergrad in Software Development (BSc, Avans Hogeschool ‘s-Hertogenbosch) and Computing Science (MSc, Radboud University Nijmegen). Laurens continued his career at a start-up, where he created large-scale, real-time analytical software. Laurens continued on his academic trajectory at the Radboudumc in Nijmegen, where he started his PhD in bioinformatics.
During his PhD, Laurens integrated genetic data with protein 3D structures and protein domains. He utilized the skills he obtained before setting out on his academic trajectory; building large-scale, robust, reliable software. Exemplified by the MetaDome Web server (https://stuart.radboudumc.nl/metadome/). During his PhD, he developed novel methodologies for the interpretation of genetic variants of unknown clinical significance and, by integrating structural and evolutionary biology with genomics, Laurens identified 36 novel disease-gene associations for developmental disorders. These discoveries enabled diagnosis for over 500 families worldwide.
Laurens’ areas of expertise are (bioinformatic) software development, data integration of genetic variation with other omics, and his research aims are:
1.) Lessons long-learned in computer science aid computational biology
2.) Multi-omic data integration allows the impact measurement of genetic variation
3.) Diagnosing undiagnosed disorders will uncover novel insights into biology.
4.) International and multidisciplinary collaborations are key in diagnosing rare disorders.
At Stanford University, under guidance of Dr. Matthew Wheeler, he is conducting his postdoctoral studies in line with his research aims. -
Brian Wayda
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsHeart transplant policy and outcomes, cost-effectiveness, mathematical modeling
