MED 237: Translational Wisdom in Medicine:
Bridging Generations – Past, Present, and Future

Dr. Bernstein joined the faculty at Stanford in 1986 after completing pediatric residency at Montefiore Medical Center in New York and fellowship in Pediatric Cardiology at UCSF, working in the lab of pioneering physiologist Dr. Abe Rudolph. He served as Chief of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology from 1994 to 2011 and director of the Children’s Heart Center at Packard Children’s Hospital. He is currently Associate Dean for Curriculum and Scholarship at the Stanford School of Medicine.

His basic science lab has focused on the role of cell signaling pathways modulating cardiotoxicity and cardioprotection. He was part of a collaborative Stanford team that created some of the first murine gene knockouts in the mid-1990s, and then turned his focus to the molecular mechanisms of RV failure, a critical issue for children with complex congenital heart disease. His recent work applies induced pluripotent stem cells to study the genotype-phenotype conundrum of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Dr. Bernstein established Stanford’s heart transplant clinic for children, one of the first in the world, and has published on pediatric heart failure and transplantation, including the first clinical trials of both cellular and cell-free DNA as biomarkers of cardiac rejection.

Dr. Bernstein has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles and authors the Cardiovascular Section of Nelson’s Textbook of Pediatrics. He has trained dozens of students, residents and post-doctoral fellows in both basic science and clinical pediatric cardiology.

Dr. James Chang is currently the Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor and Chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Stanford University.

Dr. Chang graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences with joint degrees in Biology and Economics. He spent a year with Volunteers in Asia as a lecturer in English at the Beijing University of Science and Technology in Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Following this, he graduated from Yale Medical School with Alpha Omega Alpha and Cum Laude honors. From 1991 to 1993, he was a Sarnoff Laboratory Research Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center. He then completed a residency in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Stanford University Medical Center and a Hand & Microsurgery Fellowship at UCLA Medical Center.

He has spent the majority of his career at Stanford where he is currently Professor of Plastic Surgery and Orthopedic Surgery at Stanford University Medical Center. He is also an Attending Surgeon at Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital. His laboratory work involves translating tissue engineering concepts to reconstruction of tendon and bone in mutilated extremities. His clinical work focuses on complex microsurgical reconstruction of the hand.

Dr. Chang is the Hand Surgery volume editor for Converse’s Plastic Surgery, the authoritative six-volume textbook. He was the Royal College of Surgeons Foundation traveling fellow and was awarded the 2006 Sterling Bunnell Traveling Fellowship by the ASSH. Dr. Chang was the Vice-Chair of the Plastic Surgery Residency Review Committee of the ACGME and a Secretary/Treasurer of the American Board of Plastic Surgery. In these positions, Dr. Chang has been very involved in the training and certification of plastic surgeons and hand surgeons on the national level. He was elected to the American Surgical Association in 2010. In 2018, Dr. Chang was President of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. Recently, he was honored with the American Association of Plastic Surgeons Research Achievement Award.

Dr. Chang teaches at Stanford on many levels. His popular sophomore seminar, Surgical Anatomy of the Hand: From Rodin to Reconstruction, is the focal point of an exhibit at the Cantor Art Center in 2014. He has directly mentored over 60 Stanford medical students and is very involved in the training of plastic surgery residents and hand fellows. As CMO of ReSurge International (formerly Interplast), Dr. Chang manages the service and educational programs of this charitable organization that delivers reconstructive surgery to the underserved throughout the world.

He is married to Dr. Harriet Walker Roeder, a psychiatrist. They live on Stanford campus and have three daughters, Julia, Kathleen, and Cecilia. In his spare time, Jim enjoys traveling, flyfishing, cycling, watching baseball, and drinking his friends’ expensive wines.

Dr. Ruey Jen Sung is Professor Emeritus, Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine. Previously, he served as Director, Cardiac Electrophysiology and Arrhythmia Service at Stanford University Medical Center (Chair, Department of Medicine: the late Professor Edward “Ted” D. Harris, Jr)(1991-2001). He graduated from National Taiwan University (1968), completed Medical Residency at University of Wisconsin (Chair: the late Professor Robert F. Schilling)(1970-72) and Cardiology Fellowship, University of Miami (1972-74). Since then, he has devoted his research endeavors to Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology. He was the first to define the distinct anatomic location of the slow pathway relative to fast pathway conduction in the human atrioventricular (AV) node (1981), the principle of which has provided the basis of selective ablation of slow pathway conduction for curing AV nodal reentrant tachycardia, the most common form of paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia in humans. Subsequently, he described electrophysiological characteristics of the three different forms of ventricular tachycardia (i.e., reentry, automaticity, and triggered activity), their modes of initiation and termination, and responses to various pharmacological agents in the Clinical Electrophysiology laboratory (1983, 1988). In 1985, he was promoted to full Professor of Medicine in Residence at the University of California at San Francisco (Chair: the late Professor Lloyd "Holly" Smith, Jr)(1981-91). Between 2001 and 2007, he was recruited to the post of Dean, College of Medicine, and Vice-President, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. Over the past 40 years, he has authored and co-authored 200 original articles and 66 invited chapters and monographs pertaining to mechanisms and treatment of cardiac rhythm disorders. Additionally, he has co-authored a book with the late Dr. Michael R. Lauer, entitled “Fundamental Approaches to the Management of Cardiac Arrhythmias” (2000, dedicated to his early year mentor, the late Professor Agustin Castellanos, Jr. Notably, Dr. Sung is one of the Founders of the Heart Rhythm Foundation and is currently Fellows of the American College of Physicians, American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, and Heart Rhythm Society.

Ann Weinacker is the Senior Vice Chair of Medicine for Clinical Operations and she is the Chief Physician Executive of Stanford's Risk Management Department (The Risk Authority). She is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine and has been a full-time faculty member since 1999. Dr. Weinacker has extensive experience in SHC clinical and administrative leadership. She served as Chief of Staff from 2011-2014 after serving as Vice Chief of Staff from 2010-2011, and she was Associate Chief Medical Officer for Patient Care Services from 2015-2023. A strong advocate for patient centricity, Dr. Weinacker was appointed in November 2009 to be one of four leaders designated to actively design, guide and implement strategies to improve the patient experience at Stanford and served in that capacity until 2021. Her clinical work and leadership roles have been predominately in the ICU, and her research focus has been predicting lung transplant outcomes.

Dr. Weinacker began her career as a nurse and nurse anesthetist before completing her M.D. at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, Mobile, in 1986. Her advanced training includes a pulmonary and critical care fellowship and a cardiovascular postdoctoral research fellowship, completed at the University of California, San Francisco in 1994. She has won teaching awards and is a member of AOA. Locally, she received the SHC Board of Hospital Director’s coveted Denise O’Leary Award for Clinical Excellence in 2008. More recently, she has been selected by her medical school alma mater as the 2026 recipient of their Distinguished Medical Alumni Award.

Dr. Kanwaljeet Singh (“Sunny”) Anand is an award-winning physician, research scientist, child health advocate, and public health activist with a career-long dedication to improving the lives of under-served infants and children.

Dr. Anand graduated from M.G.M. Medical College, University of Indore (India), received the D.Phil. degree as a Rhodes Scholar form the University of Oxford (UK), followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Pediatric residency training at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine fellowship training at the Massachusetts General Hospital (both affiliated with Harvard University) in Boston, MA.

Dr. Anand’s early career was dedicated to eliminating the experiences of pain and stress from the lives of infants and children. His research led to the discovery of pain in the newborn, transforming the practices of anesthesia & analgesia in infancy. For this, he received the Dr. Michael Blacow Award from British Paediatric Association (1986), Pediatric Resident Research Award from American Academy of Pediatrics (1992), the inaugural Young Investigator Award in Pediatric Pain from International Association for Study of Pain (1994), the Jeffrey Lawson Award from American Pain Society (2000), the 2009 Nils Rosén von Rosenstein Award1 from Swedish Academy of Medicine, the inaugural Nightingale Excellence Physician Award from Stanford Children’s Healthcare (2016), an Honorary Doctorate in Medicine from Örebro University (Sweden, 2019) and various other awards. He presented the 6th Annual Josephine Templeton Lecture (2009), the 9th “In Praise of Medicine” Keynote Oration at the Erasmus University Medical Centennial in Rotterdam (2013), the Journées Nationales de Néonatologie Keynote Address at the Pasteur Institute in Paris (2015), among many other prestigious lectures.

Realizing that uninsured people have poor health outcomes, Dr. Anand launched the Harmony Health Clinic in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2008, to provide free medical & dental care to the uninsured in Arkansas. In 2019, he helped launch another free clinic for women & children in Clarksdale, serving Mississippi’s poorest. He has received community service awards from the National Conference for Community & Justice (the Father Joseph Biltz Award, 2007), the Governor of Arkansas (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Salute to Greatness” Individual Award, 2008), the Rotary Club International (2010), the Tennessee State General Assembly (2011), and other bodies.

Noting that critically ill Hispanic children had 3-fold higher mortality rates than matched patients, Dr. Anand invented the first-ever multi-level healthcare intervention with local healthcare strategies to eliminate healthcare disparities across ethnic groups. He was appointed as Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, & Pain Medicine at Stanford University in 2015, where he directs the Child Wellness Laboratory and the Jackson Vaughan Research Fund. His current research helps support and heal children exposed to chronic stress and social isolation in early childhood. Dr. Anand has chaired and served on several NIH Study Sections, American Board of Pediatrics, FDA Advisory Council for Anesthesia & Life-saving Drugs, and others. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles in leading medical and scientific journals, edited 9 books/journal issues, testified before the US Supreme Court, the British Parliament, and US House & Senate Committees. He provides ICU care for critically ill children, and helps reduce the global burden of congenital heart disease in India and other developing countries. His research work has been reported on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, ABC News, Fox News, PBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, The Times of London, Daily Mail, and many newspapers; and it has been profiled in numerous books including Ghosts from the Nursery, Scared Sick, Infant Memory, and others.

Recognizing that 70% of the world’s poorest are villagers, Dr. Anand organized the Ideal Village Conferences at Stanford annually 2016-2022, dedicated to improving the lives of villagers across the world by creating holistic and collaborative solutions to eliminate rural poverty. Ideal Village programs have already improved the lives of innumerable rural families and communities in India, the US, and other low- or middle-income countries (LMICs).

Dr. Kelley Skeff is a distinguished professor of Medicine at Stanford University, focusing on Primary Care and Population Health. He has been integral to medical education as Co-Director of the Stanford Faculty Development Center for Medical Teachers since 1985 and served as Director of the Medicine Housestaff Program from 1989 to 2009. Dr. Skeff held the position of Vice Chair for Educational Programs in the Department of Medicine from 2003 to 2009. His contributions to medical education have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Gores Award for excellence in teaching and the Abraham Flexner Award for Distinguished Service to Medical Education. He holds a PhD in Education from Stanford and an MD from the University of Colorado, where he also completed his residency and internship. Additionally, Dr. Skeff is a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Macy Foundation.

Dr. S.V. Mahadevan is a highly regarded expert in emergency medicine with a focus on international emergency medicine, trauma, and medical education. He serves as Professor Emeritus-Hourly in Emergency Medicine at Stanford University, where he also held significant administrative roles, including Director of South Asia Outreach and Director of Global Affairs and Strategy from 2018 to 2023. As the founding chair of Stanford's Department of Emergency Medicine and the founding director of Stanford Emergency Medicine International, he has significantly advanced emergency medical training and outreach globally. Dr. Mahadevan's contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including the S.V. Mahadevan Emergency Medicine Faculty Leadership Award and the SEMI Lifetime Achievement Award. He completed his medical education at UCLA and has extensive experience in international health initiatives across Asia and beyond, further solidifying his commitment to improving emergency care worldwide.

Dr. McConnell is a native of Brooklyn, NY and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, obtaining his BS and MS in Electrical/Biomedical Engineering, followed by his MD at Stanford University. He returned to Boston and specialized in Cardiovascular Medicine and Cardiovascular Imaging at Brigham and Women’s and Beth Israel Hospitals and then joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School, where he also obtained an MS in Clinical Investigation. His early research discovery in echocardiography has become known as “McConnell’s sign.”

He joined the faculty at Stanford in 1998 and went on to become Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and (by courtesy) Electrical Engineering and Molecular & Cellular Physiology. He was Director of Cardiovascular MRI, Preventive Cardiology Clinic, and Cardiovascular Health Innovation at Stanford and also founded and directed the Cardiovascular Imaging at Stanford (CVIS) NIH training program. He was the Principal Investigator for multiple NIH and American Heart Association (AHA) research grants as well as the top-enrolling MyHeart Counts mobile health research study launching Apple's ResearchKit. In 2015 he joined Google/Alphabet leading cardiovascular and digital health projects, including development, validation, and FDA clearances for mobile/wearable devices and AI software with Verily, Google Health, and Fitbit. He is now the Chief Health Officer at Toku to advance AI and retinal imaging for screening and prevention of major health conditions.

Dr. McConnell continues to see patients in the Stanford Preventive Cardiology Clinic, mentor in the Stanford Biodesign program, and advise multiple health tech startups. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles and is a Fellow of the AHA, the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, and the American Society of Echocardiography. He is a founding member of the AHA’s Health Technologies Advisory Group and co-chaired AHA’s 2030 Impact Goal task force and the ACC-Consumer Technology Association’s guidance on Cardiovascular Technology Solutions. In 2022, Dr. McConnell was appointed by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to the Board of Directors of the National Fitness Foundation. His book, Fight Heart Disease Like Cancer, was published by Hopkins Press in January 2024.

Dr. David Bergman is a seasoned pediatrician with a focus on general pediatrics and adolescent medicine. He holds the title of Professor Emeritus-Hourly in Pediatrics at Stanford University and is a member of the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute. From 1995 to 2000, he served as Vice President for Quality at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, contributing to the enhancement of pediatric care standards. Dr. Bergman completed his medical education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and his residency at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is board-certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and has also been involved in community initiatives, including asthma care programs in East Palo Alto, showcasing his dedication to improving children's health both locally and beyond.

Robert S. Negrin, MD is a Professor of Medicine and former Chief of the Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation at Stanford University from 2000-2020. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley and MD from Harvard University. He trained in medicine and hematology at Stanford University and joined the faculty in 1990. His research work has focused on cellular immunology in particular developing a more fundamental understanding of complex biological reactions such as graft versus host and graft vs tumor reactions in animal models and in the clinic. He has authored over 300 original papers, 40 book chapters and a book. He has received a number of awards including the Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award and is a member of the Association of American Physicians. He was previously the President of the International Society of Cellular Therapy and the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. He served as an Associate Editor of the journal Blood and is the founding editor of Blood Advances. He is the President Elect of the American Society of Hematology in 2025 and President in 2026.

As a physician and scientists who has navigated the interface between science and medicine in this session we will discuss the process of translation of an idea into a clinical application. To illustrate the concepts we will focus on a case study of improving outcomes for patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation. We will evaluate the science of how immune regulation concepts can be applied to this clinical application which has particular relevance given the recent Nobel Prize awarded in this area. We will highlight many of the challenges and how they were addressed in this long and often arduous process of clinical translation. We will discuss the roles of academia, government and industrial partners in this journey.