Roger J. Hajjar, M.D.
Dr. Hajjar is the Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. Previously, he was the Director of the Cardiovascular Laboratory of Integrative Physiology and Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hajjar has an active basic science laboratory and concentrates his research efforts on understanding the basic mechanisms of heart failure. He has developed gene transfer methods and techniques targeting the heart as a therapeutic modality to improve contractility in heart failure. Dr. Hajjar's laboratory focuses on targeting signaling pathways in cardiac myocytes to improve contractile function in heart failure and to block signaling pathways in hypertrophy and apoptosis.

Kenneth Chien, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Kenneth R. Chien is a world-recognized leader in cardiovascular science and medicine. Dr. Chien is Director at Massachusetts General Hospital Cardiovascular Research Center, Charles Sanders Endowed Chair in Medicine Professor, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Adjunct Professor, The Salk Institute. He has developed new therapeutic strategies for heart failure that have led to numerous patents. These include the discovery of Cardiotrophin-1, the most potent survival factor for heart muscle cells that plays a critical role in preventing the onset of heart failure. In addition, his lab recently identified a defect in SR Ca++ cycling as critical for heart failure progression through the generation of novel double knockout mice. This result has led to the identification of phospholamban inhibition as a novel therapeutic strategy in preventing heart failure progression. In recognition of his lifetime work in molecular cardiac physiology, Dr. Chien was recently elected as a foreign-member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences.