Adjunct Faculty Members

Dr. DiBattiste is currently the CEO of Prolocor, Inc., a cardiovascular diagnostics company, and Adjunct Professor at the CV Institute in the Stanford University School of Medicine. Previously, he led the Cardiovascular Development group at Janssen Research & Development, a Johnson & Johnson company. While serving in this role, Dr. DiBattiste set strategy and led the team in the discovery and development of novel therapeutics for cardiovascular disease. He also established the company’s presence in thrombosis and heart failure by strategically broadening its portfolio through internal and external innovation. Earlier in his career, Dr. DiBattiste practiced medicine for 10 years as an Interventional Cardiologist. He attended Harvard Medical School, completed an Internal Medicine residency at the University of Texas and completed a fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Gold is a cardiologist and executive with expertise in clinical research and drug development. Since 2017 Dr. Gold has been with Sanifit Therapeutics as Chief Medical Officer and President of the company’s U.S. subsidiary. Sanifit focuses on development of treatments for cardiovascular calcification, particularly in patients with advanced kidney disease. (https://www.sanifit.com).  Dr. Gold has 18 years of leadership experience in research and development, regulatory, medical affairs, and strategy in bio-pharma industry. Dr. Gold is a graduate of Brandeis University and Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Fellowship in Cardiology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School in Boston. He was also a Scholar in Clinical Science at Harvard Medical School.  During his career in industry Dr. Gold held leadership roles in multiple clinical programs in various therapy areas, ranging from translational to multi-center international outcomes mega-trials. Several of these programs led to FDA and global regulatory approvals of medicines currently used by millions of patients (rosuvastatin, saxagliptin, ticagrelor).

Dr. Gold started his industry career at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals’ Cardiovascular Therapeutic Area group where he worked on the development of therapeutics for dyslipidemia, diabetes, metabolism, atherosclerosis, acute coronary syndromes, and cardiovascular disease prevention. He led multiple clinical trials, including JUPITER,  and later was the development leader for rosuvastatin and ticagrelor in the USA. Dr. Gold led development teams and participated in a broad variety of product registration filings in the US, EU and Asia. Subsequently Dr. Gold was Head of Clinical Development at Reata Pharmaceuticals where he led development of molecules targeting inflammation and renal disease and led a large clinical trial in advanced kidney disease.In 2013 Dr. Gold was appointed Senior Vice President and Head of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs at Portola Pharmaceuticals, a Bay Area biotechnology company developing novel therapeutics for disorders of thrombosis and hematologic malignancies. He was the clinical leader responsible for the NDA submission approved by FDA as BevyxXa in June of 2017; and the BLA/MAA submission for AndeXa (andexanet alpha) approved in 2018. In December of 2014 Dr. Gold was appointed Consulting Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. In this role he collaborates with Stanford faculty to develop and support educational and research initiatives.  Dr. Gold offers his diverse background and extensive experience to help Stanford physicians, scientists and trainees succeed in their efforts of clinical research, academic-industry collaboration and development of new therapeutics.

Dr. Gold has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals, including New England Journal of Medicine, Circulation, and American Heart Journal. He presented and led symposia on diverse topics related to the science and development of innovative medicines.

Dr Fox is a cardiologist with his roots in academic medicine and who has worked in clinical drug development for over 20 years. His current interests are in developing novel therapies for rare genetic diseases with a particular focus on genetically defined forms of heart failure and kidney diseases. He is the President and Chief Medical Officer for the BridgeBio Pharma Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolic therapy area. located here in the Bay Area.

Stefan Jovinge, MD, PhD, is a critical care cardiologist trained in Sweden. He received his MD and internship training at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. His final fellowship training in critical care cardiology was received at Lund University Hospital in Sweden.

His interest in bone-marrow cells possibility to trans-differentiate into cardiomyocytes became the major topic of his studies, and in 2004, the Jovinge group published a study (Nygren et al; Nature Medicine, 2004) against what the field perceived so far, that bone-marrow cells don't trans-differentiate into cardiomyocytes, rather they fuse with already existing cardiomyocytes. In a later paper, they confirmed that the bone-marrow partner where mature lymphocytes and that fusion was dependent on injury to the tissue and was seen not only in the heart but also in live, cerebellum and skeletal muscle (Nygren et al Nat Cell Biol 2008). In parallel, Dr. Jovinge worked as a critical care cardiologist and built up the multi-disciplinary Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Lund University Hospital as medical director. Additionally, Dr. Jovinge headed the Clinical Research Unit at the Department of Cardiology at the same hospital. His science lab at the time built up interest in pluripotent sources of cardiomyocytes and to delineate surface-markers to sort them out from pluripotent and fetal sources (Pontén et al PLoS One 2013). This study was followed by a study isolating atrial progenitors, progenitors for solid ventricular myocardium, and trabecular myocardium (Tarnawski et al 2014 submitted to Nat Biotechnology 2014).

In addition to pioneering in FACS-ing cardiomyocytes with good viability, Dr. Jovinge’s group developed a nuclei-sorting technology whereby they could isolate nuclei and thus DNA from only cardiomyocytes (which only make up 20-30% of all cells in the heart). This technique was used to establish lack of generation of cardiomyocytes in adult mice (Walsh et al 2010) but that there was in humans an ongoing, but with age, declining post-natal generation of cardiomyocytes (Bergmann et al Science 2009). The mouse data were based on Ki-67 and BrdU and the human data on C-14 dating a technology developed by the Frisén lab at Karolinska initially for studies of CNS generation in the brain. These data have now been followed up for different parts of the heart and published in June 2015 (Bergmann et al Cell 2015). These studies all involve advanced Flow Cytometry down to single cell level as well as Cell Nuclei sorts as developed by the Jovinge group.

Dr. Robert C. Robbins assumed his position as the 22nd president of the University of Arizona on June 1, 2017. Previously, he served as president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center (TMC) in Houston from 2012 to 2017. In this role, he significantly enhanced TMC's commitment to collaboration, introducing five cross-institutional research initiatives centered on innovation, genomics, regenerative medicine, health policy and clinical research.

Prior to his time in Houston, Dr. Robbins served as professor and chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, founding director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, president of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation, president of the Western Thoracic Surgical Association, president of the American Heart Association Western States Affiliate, president of the Bay Area Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and chair of the American Heart Association Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia Council, among other roles. In 2016 he served as president of the American Heart Association Southwest Affiliate.

An internationally recognized cardiac surgeon, Robbins has focused his clinical efforts on acquired cardiac diseases with a special expertise in the surgical treatment of congestive heart failure and cardiothoracic transplantation. His research work includes the investigation of stem cells for cardiac regeneration, cardiac transplant allograft vasculopathy, bioengineered blood vessels, and automated vascular anastomotic devices. Robbins is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and a former guest editor of the Circulation Surgical Supplement.

In addition to his role at the UA, Dr. Robbins serves on the boards of the Arizona Commerce Authority, Southern Arizona Leadership Council, Tucson Metro Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona, and the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. He is also a member of the Chairman’s Circle of Sun Corridor, Inc., and a member of Greater Phoenix Leadership. While at TMC, Robbins served on the Houston branch of the Dallas Federal Reserve board, the board of directors of the Welch Foundation, and the American Heart Association Southwest Affiliate in 2016. He served on an independent blue ribbon committee to evaluate the Veterans Affairs health system, and the World Affairs Council of Greater Houston honored him as the 2016 International Citizen of the Year.

His educational background includes a B.S. in chemistry from Millsaps College, medical degree from the University of Mississippi, general surgical training at the University of Mississippi, cardiothoracic training at Stanford University, postdoctoral research at Columbia University and the National Institutes of Health, and congenital heart surgical fellowships at Emory University and Royal Children's Hospital.

Dr. Sager has had a long career in academia and drug development. He is a previous chair of the FDA Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee and an Executive Committee member of the FDA-Sponsored Cardiac Safety Research Consortium. He has played a major leadership role in CV safety issues in drug development and was the ICH E14 (“the QT Guidance”) PhARMA Expert Working Group Topic Leader. Other roles have included tenured faculty member at the UCLA School of Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, senior leadership roles in the pharmaceutical industry, including Vice President, CV/Metabolic Development at Gilead Sciences. He has published more than 200 original manuscripts and abstracts.