Webinar

Miae Kim, PharmD, MS, BCPS, received a master’s degree in Clinical Pharmacy from Seoul National University in South Korea, then moved to the U.S. where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with high distinction from the University of Minnesota with a PharmD. She completed her PGY-1 pharmacy practice training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and did a PGY-2 training in solid organ transplant at Brigham and Women?s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Kim joined the Center for Advanced Heart Disease at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as a heart transplant/MCS pharmacy specialist in 2013, working in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. She attained board certification as a Pharmacotherapy Specialist in 2013. Dr. Kim’s current interests include cardiac transplant complications, antibody-mediated rejection, and cardiac allograft vasculopathy, and she has published in multiple peer-reviewed journals and textbooks and presented at local, national, and international transplant conferences.

Steven Gabardi, PharmD, BCPS, FAST, FCCP, is a clinical specialist in organ transplant with the Department of Transplant Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. He is also an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he became the first PharmD to receive an academic appointment. Dr. Gabardi earned his PharmD at Butler University?s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Indianapolis, IN in 1999 and subsequently completed his residency in pharmacy practice at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA in 2000. After completing his residency, he was hired as a co-funded faculty member at Northeastern University’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences. His clinical practice site was at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Renal Transplant working in both the inpatient and outpatient settings.

Board-certified as a Pharmacotherapy Specialist and a Fellow of both the American Society of Transplantation and American College of Clinical Pharmacy, Dr. Gabardi has published in a multitude of textbooks and peer-reviewed journals. He has been invited to speak at local, national, and international conferences on many different transplant-related topics. Dr. Gabardi became the first transplant pharmacist to be named an Associate Editor for both the American Journal of Transplantation and Transplantation. He is also an editorial board member for several other peer-reviewed journals.

Michael Wu, MD, RhMSUS, is a rheumatologist and Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He has a particular interest in musculoskeletal ultrasound and is an educator in both the Rheumatology Fellowship and Internal Medicine Residency at Baylor. Dr. Wu completed his Internal Medicine training at Northwestern University in Chicago and his Rheumatology training at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He is happy to be back in his home state of Texas treating the wide range of rheumatologic diseases seen in his field.

Steven Gabardi, PharmD, BCPS, FAST, FCCP, is a clinical specialist in organ transplant with the Department of Transplant Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. He is also an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he became the first PharmD to receive an academic appointment. Dr. Gabardi earned his PharmD at Butler University?s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Indianapolis, IN in 1999 and subsequently completed his residency in pharmacy practice at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA in 2000. After completing his residency, he was hired as a co-funded faculty member at Northeastern University’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences. His clinical practice site was at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Renal Transplant working in both the inpatient and outpatient settings.

Board-certified as a Pharmacotherapy Specialist and a Fellow of both the American Society of Transplantation and American College of Clinical Pharmacy, Dr. Gabardi has published in a multitude of textbooks and peer-reviewed journals. He has been invited to speak at local, national, and international conferences on many different transplant-related topics. Dr. Gabardi became the first transplant pharmacist to be named an Associate Editor for both the American Journal of Transplantation and Transplantation. He is also an editorial board member for several other peer-reviewed journals.

Sara Tolaney, MD, MPH, is the Chief of the Division of Breast Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and is internationally recognized for her research and education leadership in breast cancer. She also serves as Associate Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers and is a Senior Physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Tolaney received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University and her medical degree from UC San Francisco. She subsequently completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, and fellowships in hematology and medical oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She obtained her Masters in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health.

Her research focuses on the development of novel therapies in the treatment of breast cancer and developing more effective and less toxic treatment approaches. Her work has demonstrated that a relatively low-risk regimen is beneficial in women with early stage node-negative HER2-positive cancers, and this work has been incorporated into national and international guidelines. She has developed several follow-up studies looking at novel approaches to early stage HER2-positive disease and has also played a significant role in development of CDK 4/6 inhibitors, antibody drug conjugates, and immunotherapy in breast cancer. She currently chairs several registration studies in these areas and also leads many investigator-initiated trials.  She is the author of over 150 peer-reviewed publications with manuscripts included in many prestigious journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet Oncology, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and JAMA Oncology.

In 2018, Jamil was diagnosed with breast cancer after she had a cold and lingering cough brought her in to see her primary doctor. Her doctor initially prescribed an antibiotic, but after a few weeks she returned as she wasn’t feeling better. A pinch in her side prompted her to ask for an ultrasound, as Jamil has a family history of gallbladder and appendix issues. During the ultrasound, the doctors discovered lesions on her liver. After a mammogram and breast biopsy, they determined Jamil had Stage IV de novo metastatic breast cancer that had spread all over her body except for her brain and her spine.

At the time of her diagnosis, Jamil was 39 years old with three sons at home, her youngest was 5 years old. Her husband is disabled after his experience with colon cancer and a liver transplant, so it was important that Jamil continue to be her family’s caregiver through her treatment. Jamil underwent one year of chemotherapy without taking time off from work or disclosing her breast cancer diagnosis. In addition to chemo, Jamil underwent an oophorectomy and after one year she had no evidence of disease.

Jamil is the founder and CEO of The Chrysalis Initiative. Jamil founded The Chrysalis Initiative which provides guidance on how to thrive with breast cancer. Jamil’s extensive research to understand breast cancer and comprehensive breast cancer care became the foundation for The Chrysalis Initiative. Mentoring and coaching 50 women led her to creating a curriculum for comprehensive cancer care specifically for Black women. Today, The Chrysalis Initiative offers a variety of services including One-on-One Coaching, Provider Equity Assessments, Training & Education, and Student Training Programs.

Jamil is also Board President of METAvivor Research and Support, Inc. She is a Young Advocate Alum, Board Member of Living Beyond Breast Cancer, and Advisory Chair of the <i>Knowledge is Power: Understanding Black Breast Cancer</i> series. She is a policy and science advocate with Susan G. Komen.

In addition, Jamil is a member and patient advisor of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance and is a Project LEAD graduate and proposal reviewer for the Breast Cancer Research program with the Department of Defense. She has been featured in People magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer the Philadelphia Tribune, national campaigns for Anthropologie, Novartis, Pfizer, and Cancer and Careers, as well as on CBS News and Good Morning America.

Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Co-Director of the Santa Monica-UCLA Outpatient Oncology Practice, Medical Director of the Clinical Research Unit of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA, and Director of Breast Oncology. Dr. Hurvitz earned her MD from the University of Southern California. She served her internship and residency at UCLA, was Chief Resident of internal medicine, and completed a hematology-oncology fellowship at UCLA in 2006. Dr. Hurvitz is board certified in internal medicine, hematology, and medical oncology.

Dr. Hurvitz has received numerous awards over the past few years, among them the Marni Levine Memorial Breast Cancer Research Award from 2008 through 2015. She has an active clinical practice specializing in the treatment of women with breast cancer. She is involved in designing, implementing, and leading multiple national and international clinical trials testing new targeted therapies, and leads the preclinical evaluation of novel breast cancer targets in the Translation Oncology Research Laboratory at UCLA.

Dr. Akuthota’s research efforts range from basic scientific investigations of human eosinophil biology and eosinophilic inflammation to clinical and translational efforts in asthma and eosinophilic pulmonary disease. He is the corresponding Principal Investigator for the University of California San Diego Clinical Center in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s PrecISE Network that will be studying precision interventions in severe asthma. He is a co-investigator on a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing the efficacy of anti-IL-5 therapy in the treatment of Eosinophilic Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (EGPA, also known as Churg Strauss Syndrome). His research group is involved in other multicenter studies in eosinophilic disease and asthma. Basic science investigations from Dr. Akuthota focus on ex vivo studies of human eosinophils and include published work studying eosinophil trafficking and work studying microparticle release by eosinophils. He has written several reviews and chapters discussing eosinophil immunobiology and clinical considerations in eosinophilic diseases. Dr. Akuthota is an At-Large Member of the Board of Directors of the International Eosinophil Society (eosinophil-society.org). 

Michael E. Wechsler is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at National Jewish Health (NJH) in Denver, Director of the NJH/Cohen Family Asthma Institute, and Associate Vice President for Innovation and Industry Relations at NJH. In addition to clinical work in pulmonary and critical care medicine, Professor Wechsler’s research focuses on clinical and translational asthma with emphasis on clinical trials in asthma, novel asthma therapies, bronchial thermoplasty, asthma pharmacogenomics, and management of eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (i.e. Churg-Strauss Syndrome). He has led studies focusing on novel biologic agents for asthma and related diseases, including benralizumab, dupilumab, mepolizumab, reslizumab, and tezepelumab. He has published more than 270 peer-reviewed manuscripts relating to asthma, EGPA, and eosinophilic lung diseases. He was a member of the Steering Committee and site Principal Investigator (PI) of the NIH-sponsored Asthma Clinical Research Network (ACRN, now called AsthmaNet), a multicenter asthma clinical trials consortium, and currently serves as the PI of the Denver site of the Precision Intervention in Severe/Exacerbating Asthma (PRECISE) network. A member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, he has participated in many different task forces related to the study of eosinophilic lung diseases that were sponsored by the NIH, the FDA, the European Respiratory Society, and the International Eosinophil Society. He is currently Associate Editor of the journal Chest and has served as Associate Editor of the journal Allergy and on the editorial board of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Wechsler received AB and MMSc degrees from Harvard University in Boston and an MD degree from McGill University in Montreal. He completed medical training at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and as part of the Harvard Combined Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Training Program.</br.

Dr. Philip Seo is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Rheumatology. A graduate of Harvard College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, Dr. Seo completed his Internal Medicine training as a member of the Osler Medical Service at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Since then, he has worked at Johns Hopkins in several capacities, including as a hospitalist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, and as an Assistant Chief of Service of the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, before joining the Division of Rheumatology.

His research interests are the assessment and treatment of ANCA-associated vasculitides, including Churg Strauss Syndrome, Wegener’s Granulomatosis, and Microscopic Polyangiitis.

Michael E. Wechsler is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at National Jewish Health (NJH) in Denver, Director of the NJH/Cohen Family Asthma Institute, and Associate Vice President for Innovation and Industry Relations at NJH. In addition to clinical work in pulmonary and critical care medicine, Professor Wechsler’s research focuses on clinical and translational asthma with emphasis on clinical trials in asthma, novel asthma therapies, bronchial thermoplasty, asthma pharmacogenomics, and management of eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (i.e. Churg-Strauss Syndrome). He has led studies focusing on novel biologic agents for asthma and related diseases, including benralizumab, dupilumab, mepolizumab, reslizumab, and tezepelumab. He has published more than 270 peer-reviewed manuscripts relating to asthma, EGPA, and eosinophilic lung diseases. He was a member of the Steering Committee and site Principal Investigator (PI) of the NIH-sponsored Asthma Clinical Research Network (ACRN, now called AsthmaNet), a multicenter asthma clinical trials consortium, and currently serves as the PI of the Denver site of the Precision Intervention in Severe/Exacerbating Asthma (PRECISE) network. A member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, he has participated in many different task forces related to the study of eosinophilic lung diseases that were sponsored by the NIH, the FDA, the European Respiratory Society, and the International Eosinophil Society. He is currently Associate Editor of the journal Chest and has served as Associate Editor of the journal Allergy and on the editorial board of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Wechsler received AB and MMSc degrees from Harvard University in Boston and an MD degree from McGill University in Montreal. He completed medical training at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and as part of the Harvard Combined Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Training Program.</br.

Dr. Dougan is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and is the Director of the Immunotherapy Mucosal Toxicities Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. He received his MD and PhD from Harvard Medical School, completing his dissertation work in Immunology with Dr. Glenn Dranoff at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Dougan’s research aims to translate findings from a detailed analysis of the immune mechanisms driving immunotherapy toxicities into novel treatment strategies both for malignancies and for inflammatory diseases of gut.

Dr. Rebecca Castner (she/her) is a clinical pharmacy specialist with board certification in both ambulatory care pharmacy and HIV pharmacy practice. Throughout her 10+ years in practice, she has provided subject matter expertise in the areas of outpatient psychiatric pharmacy, integrative medicine, sexually transmitted infection treatment and prevention, gender-affirming care, and mindfulness. She currently serves as the embedded ambulatory care clinical pharmacist within six regional primary care clinics at Rush University Medical Center in the Chicagoland area.

Dr. Kerry Reynolds is an oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She currently serves as the Director of the Severe Immunotherapy Complications (SIC) Service and the Clinical Director for Inpatient Cancer Services at Mass General Cancer Center. She joined the Harvard Medical School faculty in 2014, after completing her residency and chief residency at Massachusetts General and fellowship training in Oncology at Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care.

The SIC Service is the first program of its kind in the country. Every hospitalized patient at Mass General Cancer Center who has received immunotherapy and is suspected to be experiencing an immune-related adverse event (irAE) is seen by one of the Service’s dedicated oncologists, resulting in unparalleled care for this type of toxicity. Under the leadership of Dr. Reynolds, the SIC Service now provides care to a significant number of patients every year and has grown to comprise more than 50 clinicians and researchers across 19 different areas of the hospital, including subspecialists from oncology, cardiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, and many more relevant disciplines.

In addition to providing clinical care, supervising and educating trainees, and participating in administrative affairs, Dr. Reynolds leverages the work of the SIC Service to conduct research on the severe toxicities associated with immunotherapy. Her ultimate goal is to improve the lives of patients undergoing immunotherapy by uncovering irAE predictors and biomarkers, characterizing the clinical presentations of irAEs, developing best practices for managing irAEs, and elucidating the mechanisms that drive irAEs in order to develop novel therapies. To pursue this goal, she is working with Dr. Alexandra-Chloe Villani to systematically collect blood and tissue samples from patients with irAEs and analyze them using cutting-edge technologies. Dr. Reynolds has also authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and several book chapters, and she was lead editor of Facing Immunotherapy: A Guide for Patients and Their Families.