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Daniel Amen, MD

Dr. Amen is a physician, double board certified psychiatrist, teacher and five time New York Times bestselling author. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on applying brain imaging science to everyday clinical practice. Dr. Amen is the Founder of Amen Clinics in Newport Beach and San Francisco, California, Bellevue, Washington, Reston, Virginia, Atlanta and New York City.

Amen Clinics have the world’s largest database of functional brain scans relating to behavior, totaling 73,000 scans on patients from 90 countries.

Dr. Amen is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and he is the lead researcher on the world’s largest brain imaging and rehabilitation study on professional football players. His research has not only demonstrated high levels of brain damage in players, he also showed the possibility of significant recovery for many with the principles that underlie his work.

Together with Pastor Rick Warren and Drs. Mark Hyman and Mehmet Oz, Dr. Amen is also one of the chief architects on Saddleback Church’s “Daniel Plan,” a 52 week program to get the world healthy through religious organizations. After the first year the church lost 260,000 pounds, but weight loss was only one of the stunning side effects of getting truly healthy. Other common effects of The Daniel Plan were increased energy, better focus and mood, and a reduction of many medications for the participants. The Daniel Plan is now being exported around the world to help churches, synagogues and all religious people get healthy.

Dr. Amen is also the host of 6 popular shows about the brain, which have raised more than 40 million dollars for public television.

Dr. Amen is the author of 51 professional articles, five book chapters, and over 30 books, including five New York Times bestsellers, including Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, Magnificent Mind At Any Age, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, and Use Your Brain to Change Your Age. In February 2013, Crown will publish Dr. Amen’s upcoming book, Unleash the Power of the Female Brain.

Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD

Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, is the CEO or Insilico Medicine, Inc, a company applying latest advances in deep learning to drug discovery and biomarker development headquartered at the Emerging Technology Centers on the campus of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the CSO of the Biogerontology Research Foundation, a UK-based registered charity supporting aging research worldwide. The company is focusing on applying deep learning and advanced signaling pathway activation analysis to biomarker discovery, drug discovery and drug repurposing for aging and age-related diseases. Dr. Zhavoronkov is the co-founder and CSO of Beauty.AI, the first beauty contest judged by robot jury, co-founder of AgeNet competition on deep learned biomarkers of aging, co-founder of Diversity.AI, a think tank dedicated to preventing racial and age bias in AI. He is also the director of the International Aging Research Portfolio (IARP) knowledge management project and head of the Regenerative Medicine Laboratory at the Federal Clinical Research Center for Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology, one of the largest children's cancer centers in the world performing over 300 bone marrow transplantations annually since 2012. He is the adjunct professor of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. His primary research interests include artificial intelligence, deep learning, GPU computing, systems biology of aging, regenerative medicine, next-generation sequencing and non-invasive prenatal and cancer diagnostics. He holds two Bachelor Degrees from Queen’ s University, a Masters in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University, and a PhD in Biophysics from the Moscow State University. From 2011 to 2016 Dr. Zhavoronkov published over 60 peer-reviewed research papers and two books "The Ageless Generation: How advances in biomedicine will transform the global economy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and “Dating AI: a guide to falling in love with artificial intelligence” (RE/Search Publications, 2012). Prior to switching his focus to aging research in 2004, he served as the director of Central and Eastern Europe at ATI Technologies, publicly-traded leader in computer graphics processing technology acquired by AMD (Nasdaq:AMD) and was the co-founder of and heads NeuroG, a neuroinformatics company utilizing machine learning techniques to analyze EEG and fMRI data. He is the editor of Aging, associate editor of Frontiers in Genetics and review editor of Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences and is co-organizing the EMBO Practical Applications of Aging Research forum and the Artificial Intelligence Forum at the Basel Life Science Week, one of Europe's largest industry events in drug discovery.

Erika Schwartz, MD

Dr. Erika Schwartz is a leading expert in the field of bioidentical hormone therapies, wellness and disease prevention.

After training at NYU, SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and Kings County Hospital in NY, in internal medicine and critical care, Dr.Erika became Director of Emergency Medicine at a tertiary trauma center in NY at the age of 28. (Westchester Medical Center)

Five years later in private practice of internal medicine she began to integrate preventive medicine, wellness and the use of bioidentical hormones into her protocols as well as developing a rapidly expanding patient advocacy platform.

She quickly became well respected and sought after as an educator of physicians and the public, with followers around the globe because of her fresh and highly successful approach to empower people to take responsibility for their own health to create better lives without fear of disease.

Dr. Erika has written four best-selling books, is quoted and bylined in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other major publications, she testified before Congress, hosted her own PBS pledge special, appeared on numerous programs including CBS News, Larry King Live, CNN, MSNBC, The View, Extra, NBC, Dr. Oz Sirius Satellite Radio Show and many others.

A consummate patient advocate and hormone expert with medical research articles and lectures around the globe, Dr. Schwartz is actively seeing patients in her NYC office and writes articles for five national publications on a regular basis.

Her passion for education and patient care permeates her entire body of work.

Alessio Fasano, MD

Dr. Fasano is Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and is currently the Director of the Mucosal Biology Research Center and the Center for Celiac Research at the same Institution. Dr. Fasano was born in Italy where he completed is training as a pediatric gastroenterologist. In 1993, he was recruited at the University of Maryland and founded the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition. In 1996, he established the Center for Celiac Research, a unique facility that offers state of the art research, teaching, and clinical expertise for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of celiac disease. In recent years, Dr. Fasano's research has focused on the pathophysiology and role of intercellular tight junctions in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, with speciual emphasis on celiac disease and type 1 diabetes. Dr. Fasano has published more than 190 peer reviewed papers and has filed more than 160 patent applications, many of which have been granted. Dr. Fasano is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He has been awarded several prizes for his translational science, including the 2005 Innovator of the Year Award from the State of Maryland, 2005 finalist for the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the 2006 Best Academic/Industry Collaboration Award from the Greater Baltimore Committee, the 2006 Entepreneur of the Year Award from the University of Maryland, the 2009 Researcher of the Year Award from the University of Maryland, the 2010 Arnold Silverman, M.D. Lectureship in Pediatric GI, Hepatology, and Nutrition, the 2011 Influential Marylander in Health Care Award, and the 2011 Student Council Faculty Preclinical Award. His research has been funded by the National Insitutes of Health since 1995, without interruption. Dr. Fasano has been a permanent member of the gastrointestinal Cell and Molecular Biology NIH study section from 2005 to 2008 and has continued his activity as an ad hoc reviewer. In february 2010 Dr. Fasano has been elected as member of the College of Center for Scientific Review (CSR) Reviewers.

Jill Carnahan, MD

Dr. Carnahan completed her residency at the University of Illinois Program in Family Medicine at Methodist Medical Center. In 2006 she was voted by faculty to receive the Resident Teacher of the Year award and elected to Central Illinois 40 Leaders Under 40. She received her medical degree from Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago and her Bachelor of Science degree in Bio-Engineering at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. She is dually board-certified in Family Medicine (ABFM) and Integrative Holistic Medicine (ABIHM). She was also part of the first 100+ health-care practitioners to be certified in Functional Medicine through the Institute of Functional Medicine (IFMCP). In 2008, Dr. Carnahan’s vision for health and healing resulted in the creation of Methodist Center for Integrative Medicine in Peoria, IL where she served as the Medical Director for 2 years. In 2010, she founded Flatiron Functional Medicine in Boulder, Colorado where she partnered in functional medicine with medical partner, Dr. Robert Rountree. She recently opened a brand new medical clinic with a broad range of services in Louisville, Colorado. Dr. Carnahan is also 14-year survivor of breast cancer and Crohn’s disease and passionate about teaching patients how to “live well” and thrive in the midst of complex and chronic illness. She is also committed to teaching other physicians how to address underlying cause of illness rather than just treating symptoms through the principles of functional medicine. She is a prolific writer, speaker, and loves to infuse others with her passion for health and healing!

William Davis, MD

William Davis, MD is cardiologist and author of the New York Times Bestseller, Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health, the book that introduced the dangers of modern high-yield wheat, altered by genetics research in the 1970s, to the public.

Dr. Davis is Medical Director and founder of the Track Your Plaque program for heart disease prevention and reversal. This program was articulated in the book, Track Your Plaque: The only heart disease prevention program that shows how to use the new heart scans to detect, track, and control coronary plaque, as well as the online program by the same name (www.trackyourplaque.com).

Dr. Davis is a graduate of St. Louis University School of Medicine, with internship and residency training in internal medicine at Ohio State University Hospitals, fellowship in cardiovascular medicine also at Ohio State University, and advanced angioplasty training at MetroHealth Medical Center and Case-Western Reserve University Hospitals, where he subsequently served as Director of the Cardiovascular Fellowship and Assistant Professor of Medicine. He presently practices cardiology in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife and three children.

Heather Tick, MD

As the first holder of the prestigious Gunn-Loke Endowed Professorship of Integrative Pain Medicine at the University of Washington, Dr. Tick incorporates integrative medicine in her practice with a focus on healthful self-care practices and long-term results.

An integrative pain practitioner for over 30 years, Dr. Tick serves at the forefront of research and teaching as a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington in the departments of Family Medicine and Anesthesia & Pain Medicine. She has also been involved with research with the University of Waterloo, Department of Kinesiology, the University of Washington and University of Arizona. She was the Director of the Integrative Pain Clinic at the University of Arizona in the Department of Family and Community Medicine until Dec 2011. And was then recruited by the University of Arizona Health Plan to start the integrative medicine pain clinic for Medicaid patients.

Her academic work includes The May 2014 publication in Pain: Clinical Update Integrative Pain Medicine: A Holistic Model of Care, and work on a set of proposed core competencies for Integrative Pain Medicine for primary care practitioners. She has also published integrative medicine chapters in Review texts for Pain Fellowship Preparation, Physical Medicine and Interventional Pain Medicine.

A multiple-book author, including the highly acclaimed Holistic Pain Relief - An In-Depth Guide to Managing Chronic Pain, Dr. Tick empowers her patients to live free of pain and full of life. She is interested in expanding the reach of integrative medical practices to under-serviced populations through education and research.

David Katz

Dr. Katz has been acclaimed by colleagues as the “poet laureate” of health promotion and praised by audiences around the world for his passionate work to help us live longer, healthier lives. A clinician, researcher, author, inventor, journalist, and media personality, Dr. Katz is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions; supported nominations for the position of U.S. Surgeon General; recognition by Greatist.com as one of the 100 most influential people in health and fitness in the world; and inclusion by LinkedIN as one of the original 150 Influencers.

Massimo Dominici, MD

Massimo Dominici, M.D., is an assistant professor in Oncology and Hematology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Modena is an ancient city (3rd century BC) with an old University dated 1175 AC. Modena is the home of the traditional balsamic vinegar, Luciano Pavarotti and the Italian sports car manufacturers Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati. Massimo has been an ISCT member since 2001. He is currently a member of the Mesenchymal & Tissue Stem Cells Committee and the ISCT Treasurer and has seen the society go from operating at a loss to being profitable. In the 2009 he co-founded the forum of Italian Researchers on Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (FIRST).

Robynne Chutkan, MD

Dr. Chutkan is the author of the bestselling digestive health books Gutbliss, The Microbiome Solution, and The Bloat Cure.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Yale University and her medical degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, where she also did her internship and residency and served as chief resident. She completed her fellowship in gastroenterology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

Dr. Chutkan has been on the faculty at Georgetown University Hospital since 1997. In 2004 she founded the Digestive Center for Women, an integrative gastroenterology practice incorporating nutritional optimization, exercise physiology, biofeedback, and stress reduction as part of the therapeutic approach to digestive disorders. In the last few years she has focused exclusively on diagnosing and treating microbial discord in the gut, and created the GutBiome Institute to facilitate better patient access to microbiome education, testing and treatment.

A former Board member of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), Dr Chutkan also chaired the ASGE Training Committee and Public Relations Committee. She has authored dozens of journal articles and book chapters and has been a featured lecturer throughout the United States and Europe.

Dr Chutkan is a regular guest on the Dr. Oz Show covering digestive health, and is also a member of the Medical Advisory Board for the show. She was the host of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Roundtable Series and a medical consultant and on-air talent for Discovery Health Channel. She has been a featured expert on The Today Show, CBS This Morning, and The Doctors. She is frequently interviewed as a medical expert for the Washington Post and women's health magazines and has been consistently named one of the area's best doctors by Washingtonian magazine. She is an avid marathon runner and yogi, and is passionate about helping her patients live not just longer, but better lives.

Tana Amen, RN

Tana started as a neurosurgical ICU nurse at Loma Linda University Medical Center. Currently, she teaches practical lifestyle application programs at The Amen Clinics, using food to heal the mind and body. Tana is an author, and appears on PBS with her teaching philosophies

Craig Venter, PhD

J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., is regarded as one of the leading scientists of the 21st century for his numerous invaluable contributions to genomic research. He is Founder, Chairman, and CEO of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit, research organization with approximately 300 scientists and staff dedicated to human, microbial, plant, synthetic and environmental genomic research, and the exploration of social and ethical issues in genomics.

Dr. Venter is Founder and CEO of Synthetic Genomics Inc (SGI), a privately held company dedicated to commercializing genomic-driven solutions to address global needs such as new sources of energy, new food and nutritional products, and next generation vaccines.

Dr. Venter is also a co-founder and CEO of Human Longevity Inc (HLI), a San Diego-based genomics and cell therapy-based diagnostic and therapeutic company focused on extending the healthy, high performance human life span.

Dr. Venter began his formal education after a tour of duty as a Navy Corpsman in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. After earning both a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of California at San Diego, he was appointed professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. In 1984, he moved to the National Institutes of Health campus where he developed Expressed Sequence Tags or ESTs, a revolutionary new strategy for rapid gene discovery. In 1992, Dr. Venter founded The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR, now part of JCVI), a not-for-profit research institute, where in 1995 he and his team decoded the genome of the first free-living organism, the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae, using his new whole genome shotgun technique.

In 1998, Dr. Venter founded Celera Genomics to sequence the human genome using new tools and techniques he and his team developed. This research culminated with the February 2001 publication of the human genome in the journal, Science. He and his team at Celera also sequenced the fruit fly, mouse and rat genomes.

Dr. Venter and his team at JCVI continue to blaze new trails in genomics. They have sequenced and analyzed hundreds of genomes, and have published numerous important papers covering such areas as environmental genomics, the first complete diploid human genome, and the groundbreaking advance in creating the first self- replicating bacterial cell constructed entirely with synthetic DNA.

Dr. Venter is one of the most frequently cited scientists, and the author of more than 280 research articles. He is also the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, public honors, and scientific awards, including the 2008 United States National Medal of Science, the 2002 Gairdner Foundation International Award, the 2001 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize and the King Faisal International Award for Science. Dr. Venter is a member of numerous prestigious scientific organizations including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Society for Microbiology.

Abraham Morgentaler, MD

Abraham Morgentaler, MD, is a leading international figure in the fields of testosterone therapy, prostate cancer, and male sexuality.

Dr. Morgentaler was born in Montreal, Canada. He graduated from Harvard College in 1978, and Harvard Medical School in 1982. Dr. Morgentaler completed his residency in 1988 from the Harvard Program in Urology, and then joined the faculty of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He is currently an Associate Professor of Surgery (Urology), Part-time, at Harvard Medical School.

In 1999 Dr. Morgentaler founded Men's Health Boston, the first Men’s Health center in the US, focusing on sexual, reproductive, and hormonal health for men.

Dr. Morgentaler is credited with shattering the decades-old belief that testosterone therapy is risky for prostate cancer, and pioneering the modern use of testosterone in men. More recently, Dr. Morgentaler has been a leading scientific figure in the global discussion regarding cardiovascular risks of testosterone therapy. Dr. Morgentaler has published over 130 scientific articles, including leading medical journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and Cancer.

He has co-chaired the popular Endocrine Forum at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association for the last 12 years. Dr. Morgentaler has been an invited speaker in over 20 countries on five continents. He is the author of the best-selling books, The Truth About Men and Sex, Testosterone For Life, and The Viagra Myth.

Dr. Morgentaler has been featured on many national television shows and major popular publications, including The NBC Nightly News, The CBS Early Morning Show, CNN with Anderson Cooper, Time Magazine, The New Yorker, Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Wall street Journal.

Brad Bale, MD

Dr. Bradley Bale is one of the nation’s leading specialists in preventing heart attacks, stroke and diabetes. Since 2002, he’s given more than 600 speeches and presentations to medical groups in the US and abroad, including the American Heart Association, Berkeley HeartLab and European Atherosclerosis Society. His media interviews include The Huckabee Show, Fox TV, ABC TV, The Wall Street Journal and ESPN, which recently reported on how Dr. Bale screened coaches, scouts and former players from Seattle Seahawks football team for cardiovascular disease (CVD), using a state-of-the-art ultrasound test. He has also served as a medical expert on the Larry King Cardiac Foundation’s program on sudden cardiac death, honoring the late Tim Russert.

Dr. Bale is medical director of the Heart Health Program at Grace Clinic in Lubbock, Texas and cofounder of the BaleDoneen Method international preceptorship program, an accredited continuing medical education (CME) course teaching health care providers advanced techniques to detect—and reverse—CVD before the patient suffers a heart attack or stroke. Hundreds of MDs have completed the training, some of whom subsequently opened their own prevention clinics, hailing the course “an incredible resource…the future of medicine,” “the best, by far, educational program I have ever attended,” and “the education of a lifetime…the only totally comprehensive program in the world for the prevention of this disease.”

For more than 30 years, Dr. Bale maintained one of the largest primary care practices in Spokane, Washington, where he cofounded the Heart Attack Prevention Clinic with Amy Doneen, MSN, ARNP in 2003—one of the first such facilities in the US. (It’s now called the Heart Attack & Stroke Prevention Center). Convinced that standard methods of cardiac care weren’t doing enough to identify early stages of CVD and avert recurrences in heart attack and stroke survivors, he cofounded the BaleDoneen Method of personalized risk assessment and disease management in 2001. Of the 3,500 patients he’s treated with the method—including many physicians with CVD—only one had a heart attack, from which the patient made a full recovery. None of them suffered strokes.

A sought-after speaker and educator, Dr. Bale is co-chair of Berkeley Heartlab’s national five-hour CVD prevention course, which he will present in 18 cities from coast to coast this year. He made a similar tour last year, and in 2008, he lectured in 20 cities as co-chair of a national CME program on lipids and CVD. Dr. Bale has presented study abstracts at the 2009 American Heart Association meeting, the 2009 International Atherosclerosis Society meeting, the 2007 European Atherosclerosis Society Meeting, the 2005 American Heart Association conference on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, and many others.

His research on CVD prevention has been published in such respected medical journals as the American Heart Association’s Circulation, Atherosclerosis, the official journal of the European Atherosclerosis Society, Post Graduate Medicine, Journal of National Medical Association, Journal of Clinical Lipidology, Physician’s Weekly, and Journal of Clinical Lipidology, ADVANCE for Administrators of the Laboratory and ADVANCE for Healthy Aging. He has also served as a reviewer for American Journal of Cardiology, a consultant to deCODE Genetics and Cleveland HeartLab, and is on the speakers’ bureaus for Takeda, diaDexus and Berkeley HeartLab.

Dr. Bale is a clinical assistant professor, School of Medicine, Texas Tech Health Sciences Center and an adjunct professor at Texas Tech’s School of Nursing. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree from University of Kentucky and his Bachelor of Arts in biochemistry from Lawrence University. He was board-certified in family medicine in 1978 and is a member of American Heart Association, American Stroke Association, American Diabetes Association, American Lipid Association, Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, Society of Atherosclerosis Imaging and Prevention and other medical societies. He has participated in numerous Grand Round and CME presentations and spoken at many major medical conferences.

Rob Knight, PhD

Rob Knight is Professor of Pediatrics and Computer Science & Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and author of “Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes”. He received a B.Sc. in Biochemistry in 1996 from the University of Otago in his native New Zealand, a PhD in 2001 from Princeton University in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and performed postdoctoral work at the University of Colorado, Boulder before becoming a faculty member in the interdisciplinary BioFrontiers Institute there in 2004. He moved to UC San Diego in 2015 to direct the new Microbiome Initiative. His work focuses on using readout technologies such as next-generation sequencing to improve our understanding of the structure, function and dynamics of the human microbiome, contributing to the main data analysis in the NIH-funded Human Microbiome Project. He is co-founder of the Earth Microbiome Project and the American Gut Project. Current research interests include relating the human microbiome to diseases ranging from obesity to mental illness, spatial and temporal mapping of microbial communities on different scales ranging from our bodies to our planet, and developing new data visualization methods that assist in resolving the challenge of microbial “Big Data”.

Dave Asprey

Dave Asprey, founder of Bulletproof and author of New York Times bestseller “The Bulletproof Diet,” is a Silicon Valley investor and technology entrepreneur who spent two decades and over $300,000 to hack his own biology.

Dave lost 100 pounds without counting calories or excessive exercise, used techniques to upgrade his brain and lift his IQ by 20 points. He lowered his biological age while learning to sleep more efficiently in less time. Learning to do these seemingly impossible things transformed him into a better entrepreneur, a better husband, and a better father.

Dave is the creator of the widely popular Bulletproof Coffee, host of the #1 health podcast, Bulletproof Radio, and author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Bulletproof Diet.” Through his work, Dave provides information, techniques and keys to taking control of and improving your biochemistry, your body and your mind. The goal is for everything to work in unison, helping you execute at levels far beyond what you’d expect, without burning out, getting sick, or allowing stress to control your decisions.

Dave’s new venture, the Bulletproof Coffee Shop, is now open in Santa Monica with more locations coming soon.

Juliet Funt

Juliet Funt is the owner and founder of WhiteSpace at Work and is a warrior in the battle against reactive busyness. It is her mission and that of her team to unearth the potential of companies by unburdening their talent. With thought-provoking content and immediately-actionable tools, she has become a nationally-recognized expert in coping with the Age of Overload in which we all live and work.

Juliet helps attendees learn the pivotal difference between meaningless activity and true productivity. She teaches a streamlined method for personal process improvement, leading to more creativity and engagement. She helps executives, managers and teams answer the critical question, "What thoughts deserve my full attention today?"

Incredibly intuitive, Juliet successfully blends highly-customized content with a keen understanding of clients' needs in her programs and consulting work. Yet beneath her powerful assets, she is both authentic and accessible. As a busy corporate speaker and consultant, business owner, wife and mother of three young boys, she practices on a daily basis the WhiteSpace concept she shares with clients.

Marc Penn, PhD

Dr. Marc Penn is the President and Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of Black Beret Life Sciences (Houston, TX). He is a cardiologist and Director of the Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship at the Summa Cardiovascular Institute, Summa Health (Akron, OH) and Professor of Medicine and Integrative Medical Sciences at Northeast Ohio Medical University where he leads the Skirball Laboratory for Cardiovascular Cellular Therapeutics (Rootstown, OH). From 2000-11 Dr. Penn was a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic where he served as the Director of the Coronary Intensive Care Unit, Director of the Experimental Animal Laboratory, Director of the Bakken Heart-Brain Institute, and the Founding Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Cell Therapy.

Dr. Penn completed his undergraduate and postgraduate work at Case Western Reserve University completing a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 1989 and Doctor of Medicine in 1994. He completed his Internal Medicine training at University Hospitals of Cleveland (1994-97) and his Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship at Cleveland Clinic (1997-2000). He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Medicine. During his training he received numerous awards including the 2000 Joseph Cash Memorial Prize for Clinical Outcomes Research and the 1999 Irvine H. Page Young Investigator award for Atherosclerosis Research presented by the National American Heart Association. His work led to SDF-1 being chosen as a Top Advanced Therapy to Watch (November 2013, Boston). He has adjunct appointments at Case Western Reserve University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Bioengineering Center at Cleveland State University.

Dr. Penn’s research has led to several discoveries in the field of cardiovascular medicine including discoveries in diagnostics and drug delivery systems for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, including strategies to optimize gene and stem cell therapy for regeneration of myocardial tissue. Dr. Penn has organized and lectured at international symposia and conferences, and is author or co-author of hundreds of articles, abstracts, book chapters and books on a wide range of topics in basic and translation science, and clinical medicine.

Dr. Penn is an active inventor, serial entrepreneur and internationally recognized as an expert in translating basic science research to clinical populations to impact patient outcomes. He has generated intellectual property in the fields of diagnostics, biologics and devices that has been licensed by numerous companies, having authored dozens of U.S. and international patent applications. In 2006 he was named Innovator of the Year at the Cleveland Clinic. He is the founder of Juventas Therapeutics, Inc. (Cleveland, OH) a regenerative medicine company founded on intellectual property invented by his group based on fundamental novel concepts of endogenous stem cell mediated tissue repair. As CMO of Juventas Therapeutics, Inc. (2007-2016) he designed and executed the Phase II studies STOP-CLI, STOP-HF, RETRO-HF and STOP-PAD. He is co-founder and CMO of Cleveland Heart Lab, Inc. (Cleveland, OH), a revenue stage diagnostic company based on biomarkers associated with coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction and other inflammatory diseases. He was founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cour Pharma from 2007-2010 (Kalamazoo, MI).

As CEO of Black Beret Life Sciences, LLC, he oversees the life science investments of the Bosarge Family Office and the leads the executive team of numerous companies including Tissue Genesis, LLC, (Honolulu, HI), Advanced Regen Medical Technologies, LLC, (Newark NJ) and the novel sugar replacement Sola (Houston, TX). BBLS seeks investment opportunities in early and late stage companies in the areas of regenerative medicine, anti-aging and immune therapies.

He is an advisor and board member of numerous companies. He is the PI of the Athersys MultiStem in AMI Phase I and II trials (Cleveland, OH), serves on the SMAB of NeuroTronik, Inc. (Raleigh, NC), serves as a Medical Consultant for Diasome, Inc. (Cleveland, OH) and served on the Aastrom Biosciences SAB (Ann Arbor, MI). He was a Venture Partner with Oakwood Medical Investors (2004-2010, St. Louis, MO), a member of the Advisory Board of Frantz Medical Ventures (2004-08, New York, NY), and a Clinical Partner with Foundation Medical Partners (2009-11, New Canaan, CT) where he represented the interests of the Cleveland Clinic. He served on the BOD of CardioVIP (2012-2014, Houston, TX) and currently serves on the BOD of SnappSkin (Cleveland, OH), Non-Invasix (Houston, TX) and Rhythm Therapeutics (Chicago, IL). From 2008-10 Dr. Penn served as the Senior Medical Director for Emerging Businesses at Cleveland Clinic. He is recognized as one of the top 50 doctors in the history of the Cleveland Clinic (MedCity News, December 2011).

Gary Small, PhD

Dr. Gary Small is a professor of psychiatry and director of the *UCLA Longevity Center at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior. His research, supported by the National Institute of Health, has made headlines in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Scientific American magazine named him one of the world’s leading innovators in science and technology. Dr. Small lectures throughout the world and frequently appears on The Today Show, Good Morning American, PBS, and CNN. He has written six books, including The New York Times best seller, The Memory Bible.

David Agus, MD

David Agus, MD is one of the world’s leading doctors and pioneering biomedical researchers. Over the past twenty years, he has received acclaim for his innovations in medicine and contributions to new technologies, which continue to change the perception of health and empower people around the world to maintain healthy lives. Dr. Agus is professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California, where he leads USC’s Westside Cancer Center and Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. He serves as a CBS News contributor. An international leader in new technologies and approaches for personalized healthcare, he co-founded two revolutionary companies: Navigenics and Applied Proteomics. Dr. Agus’ first book, The End of Illness, was published in 2012 and is a New York Times #1 and international bestseller, and subject of a PBS special. His second book, New York Times bestselling A Short Guide to a Long Life, was published January 2014, and his newest book The Lucky Years: How to Thrive in the Brave New World of Health was published January 5, 2016. Dr. Agus treated Steve Jobs for many years, until his death.

Zubin Damania, PhD

Zubin Damania, PhD, MD is the founder of Turntable Health and the director of healthcare development for Downtown Project Las Vegas, an ambitious urban revitalization movement spearheaded by Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh. This project is investing $350 million in the revitalization of the urban core of Las Vegas, including small business development, residential housing, education, technology, and healthcare. During his 10-year hospitalist career at Stanford, Dr. Damania received the Russell Lee Award for Clinical Teaching while simultaneously maintaining a shadow career performing stand-up comedy for medical audiences worldwide. His videos, created under the pseudonym ZDoggMD, have amassed millions of views, focusing on educating patients and providers alike while mercilessly satirizing our dysfunctional healthcare system. In Las Vegas, Zubin has made the leap from satire to actionable change by developing Turntable Health, an innovative model of healthcare delivery that promotes wellness at both the individual and community level.

Through personal anecdotes extracted from a lifetime of exposure and experience working in the medical field, Zubin inspires healthcare groups, corporations, non-profits, and associations alike. He challenges their teams to examine their own industry and ask if it still works - then to be bold and find a way to fix it.

Michael Greger, MD

A founding member and Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Michael Greger, MD, is a physician, New York Times bestselling author, and internationally recognized speaker on nutrition, food safety, and public health issues. He has lectured at the Conference on World Affairs, testified before Congress, and was invited as an expert witness in the defense of Oprah Winfrey in the infamous "meat defamation" trial. He is a graduate of Cornell University School of Agriculture and Tufts University School of Medicine. Currently Dr. Greger serves as the Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States. His latest book How Not to Die became an instant New York Times Best Seller. More than a thousand of his nutrition videos are freely available at NutritionFacts.org, with new videos and articles uploaded every day.

Daniel Kraft, MD

Daniel Kraft, MD is a world renowned visionary in medicine, Dr. Kraft has over 20 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research and healthcare innovation. His expertise has led him to chair the Medicine Track at Singularity University and serve as the Executive Director for FutureMed, an organization focused on leveraging convergent, exponentially developing technologies in health and medicine over the next decade.

As a physician, Daniel Kraft specializes in hematology/oncology & bone marrow transplantation, and has done extensive research in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.

Following undergraduate degrees at Brown and medical school at Stanford, Dr. Kraft was board certified in the Harvard combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency program at the Massachusetts General and Boston Children's Hospital, and completed Stanford fellowships in hematology/oncology & bone marrow transplantation, and extensive research in stem-cell biology and regenerative medicine.

Dr. Kraft is also the inventor of the MarrowMiner, an FDA approved device for the minimally invasive harvest of bone marrow, and founder of RegenMed Systems, a company developing technologies to enable adult stem-cell based regenerative therapies.

David Ludwig, MD

David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD is a practicing endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital. He holds the rank of Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. Dr Ludwig is Founding Director of the Optimal Weight for Life (OWL) program at Children's Hospital, one of the country’s oldest and largest multidisciplinary clinics for the care of overweight children. He also directs the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Children’s Hospital. His research focuses on the effects of diet on hormones, metabolism and body weight. In particular, he developed a novel “low glycemic load” diet (i.e., one that decreases the surge in blood sugar after meals) for the treatment of obesity and prevention of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. In addition, he conducted some of the original studies linking sugar-sweetened beverages and fast food to obesity. Described as an “obesity warrior” by Time magazine, Dr. Ludwig has fought for fundamental policy changes to restrict food advertising directed at young children, improve quality of school nutrition programs and increase insurance reimbursement for obesity prevention and treatment programs. Dr. Ludwig is a fellow of The Obesity Society and recipient of the E.V. McCollum Award (2008) of the American Society for Nutrition. He is Principal Investigator on numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health, has published over 150 scientific articles, and serves as Contributing Writer for JAMA. Dr. Ludwig is author of a book on childhood obesity for parents (Ending the Food Fight: Guide Your Child to a Healthy Weight in a Fast Food/Fake Food World Houghton Mifflin, 2007). His latest book, for a general audience, is entitled Always Hungry? Conquer Cravings, Retrain Your Fat Cells, and Lose Weight Permanently.

Kevin Pho, MD

Kevin Pho, MD is a board-certified internal medicine physician and founder of KevinMD.com, which Forbes called a "must-read health blog." Klout named him the web's top social media influencer in health care and medicine, and CNN named @KevinMD one of its five recommended Twitter health feeds.

He is also co-author of the book, "Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices."

Transforming his social media presence into a mainstream media voice, he has been interviewed on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, and his commentary regularly appears in USA Today, where he is a member of their editorial Board of Contributors, as well as CNN and the New York Times. His opinion pieces highlight the challenges real-world doctors face, ranging from the primary care shortage to the epidemic of physician burnout. His dual perspectives as a practicing physician and a health care social media leader highlight his unique social media journey.

Dr. Pho received his medical degree at Boston University School of Medicine and practices primary care in Nashua, NH. He is a member of the New Hampshire Union Leader's 2010 class of New Hampshire's 40 Under Forty, and a 2013 inductee to the Healthcare Internet Hall of Fame.