GUEST SPEAKERS
2021 AIOB Faculty
Keynote Speaker
THE PHILIP J. BOYNE LECTURE
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Yuman Fong, M.D.
Chair and Professor, Department of Surgery
City of Hope Medical Center
Director, Center for International Medicine
Director, Center for Surgical Innovation
City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center
Duarte, CA
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Dr. Yuman Fong received a BA in medieval literature from Brown University in 1981, and an MD from Cornell University Medical College in 1984. This was followed by surgical training at the New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center under Dr. G. Thomas Shires, a research fellowship under Dr. Stephen Lowry, and a surgical oncology fellowship with Dr. Murray F. Brennan at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. For over twenty years, he was an attending surgeon at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), where he held the Murray F. Brennan Chair in Surgery, and was a Professor of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College.
In 2014, Dr. Fong relocated to Southern California, where he is the Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the City of Hope Medical Center.
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Dr. Fong is best known clinically for his extensive work in the field of hepatobiliary surgery––especially for hepatocellular carcinoma, hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer, gallbladder cancer, and cholangiocarcinoma. He has pioneered many surgical, laparoscopic, robotic and ablative therapies for these cancers that occur in over a million people yearly worldwide. Nationally and internationally, he has also participated in and coordinated many studies aimed at understanding, preventing, and treating these cancers. In particular, he is focused on developing low cost and minimally invasive treatments for these cancers.
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Dr. Fong leads an active laboratory studying the use of genetically modified viruses for the killing of cancer. He was one of the first investigators to administer engineered viruses into the blood stream of humans for treatment of cancer. He is active at coordinating trials of such novel viruses in international clinical trials.
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Dr. Fong is both author and innovator: He has developed many new surgical techniques and instruments and written and edited hundreds of scholarly articles as well as nearly a dozen textbooks.
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Chad M. Rasmussen, D.D.S.
Consultant, Department of Dental Specialties
Instructor in Dentistry, Mayo Clinic College
Rochester, MN
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Dr. Chad Rasmussen earned his Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Minnesota in 1999.
He is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Primary Dental Care. His dental interests include cerec (crown) restorations and sedation dentistry. Dr. Rasmussen lives in south Minneapolis and enjoys restoring his 1920's bungalow, carpentry, taking summer baseball stadium tours and watching his daughter Hannah swim varsity for the St. Peter Saints swim team.
Michael G. Schmidt, Ph.D.
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Medical University of Southern Carolina
College of Medicine
Charleston, SC
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Michael Schmidt is Professor and Vice Chairman of Microbiology and Immunology at The Medical University of South Carolina. Currently, he is developing a series of comprehensive multi-center clinical trials that will evaluate the world’s first continuously active and non-leaching antimicrobial gloves for use in healthcare in order to assess their utility in limiting the acquisition of healthcare associated infections (HAI).
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Dr. Schmidt is also very active in the educational missions of the Colleges of Graduate Studies, Medicine and Dentistry at MUSC. To this end he has explored using learning analytics to assess how students in a dental curriculum are mastering competency. This effort was instrumental in serving the College of Dental Medicine during their recent self-study in evaluating the effectiveness of their curriculum and has led to process improvements in the formative and summative assessment of dental students.
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He serves as an invited reviewer for the literature of his field, serving on the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology (AEM) and the International Editorial Board for Infection Prevention in Practice (IPIP) for the Healthcare Infection Society of England. He has led numerous, national workshops on the use of information technology in medicine, microbiology and infectious diseases (FEMA), has twice been a panelist on Science Friday, was a former content editor for Microbeworld radio, and presently serves as regular contributor to the internationally recognized podcast This Week In Microbiology (TWiM).
Brad Spellberg, M.D., FIDSA, FACP
CMO, LAC+USC Medical Center
Professor of Clinical Medicine
Division of Infectious Diseases
Associate Dean, Clinical Affairs
USC Keck School of Medicine
Los Angeles, CA
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Dr. Spellberg is Chief Medical Officer at the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California (LAC+USC) Medical Center. He is also Medical Director of Biosciences for Los Angeles County, working with the County CEO's office to implement the LA County Board of Supervisors vision to grow biosciences in LA. He received his BA in Molecular Cell Biology-Immunology from UC Berkeley. He then attended medical school at UCLA, where he received numerous academic honors, including serving as the UCLA AOA Chapter Co-President, and winning the prestigious Stafford Warren award for the topic academic performance in his graduating class. Dr. Spellberg completed his Residency in Internal Medicine and subspecialty fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
Dr. Spellberg has extensive administrative, patient care, and teaching activities. His NIH-funded research interests are diverse, ranging from basic immunology and vaccinology, to pure clinical and outcomes research, to process improvement work related to delivery of care, focusing on safety net hospitals. His laboratory research has focused on developing a vaccine that targets the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and the fungus Candida; the vaccine is undergoing clinical development. Dr. Spellberg is currently working on the immunology, vaccinology, and host defense against highly resistant Gram negative bacilli, including Acinetobacter and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae infections.
Dr. Spellberg has worked extensively with the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) to attempt to bring attention to the problems of increasing drug resistance and decreasing new antibiotics. His research regarding new drug development was a cornerstone of the IDSA’s white paper, Bad Bugs, No Drugs, and has been cited extensively in medical literature and on Capitol Hill. As a member and then co-chair of the IDSA’s Antimicrobial Availability Task Force (AATF), he first-authored numerous IDSA position papers and review articles relating to public policy of antibiotic resistance and antibiotic development. Finally, Dr. Spellberg is the author of Rising Plague, which he wrote to inform and educate the public about the crisis in antibiotic resistant infections and lack of antibiotic development.
Mahmoud Torabinejad, D.M.D., M.S.D., Ph.D.
President & Director, Torabinejad Institute of
Surgical Education and Research Venues
Irvine, CA
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Dr. Torabinejad is president and director of the Torabinejad Institute of Surgical Education and Research Venues (TISERV) in Irvine, California and an adjunct professor at Loma Linda University, University of Pacific in San Francisco, University of California in San Francisco, and affiliate professor of endodontics at the University of Washington in Seattle.
He practices two half-days in Upland California. He has made over 200 national and international presentations in more than 40 countries. He has authored six textbooks and more than 350 publications. He is the #1 author of citation classics in the field of endodontics with authorship in 16 articles of the top 100 list.
He is the recipient of several awards from Loma Linda University which includes the Loma Linda University distinguished investigator award in 2013. He has received the AAE Ralph F. Sommer Award, the Louis I. Grossman Award, and the Philanthropist Award from the American Association of Endodontists. As an individual who had displayed leadership and exemplary dedication to dentistry and endodontic he is the recipient of the Edgar D. Coolidge Award of the AAE in 2016. He is a past president of the California Association of endodontics and past president of the American Association of Endodontists and its Foundation.
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Chi T. Viet, D.D.S., Ph.D., M.D.
Assistsant Professor
Head and Neck Surgical Oncologist
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Loma Linda University
Loma Linda, CA
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Dr. Chi Viet is an Assistant Professor in Loma Linda University Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, with a secondary appointment in the Division of Medical Oncology. She earned her DDS and PhD from University of California, San Francisco, and her MD from New York University, where she completed her Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery residency. She then went on to complete a fellowship training in both Head and Neck Oncology and Microvascular Reconstructive Surgery. As a head and neck oncologic surgeon her practice is devoted to the comprehensive surgical management of patients with head and neck benign and malignant pathology.
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Dr. Viet leads a translational research lab where she investigates gene pathways of head and neck carcinogenesis, and is working to develop novel treatment strategies for head and neck cancer. She is devoted to not only improving surgical in her patients, but also restoring their form and function through innovated reconstruction of the face, jaw and teeth after tumor ablation.
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The AIOB reserves the right to substitute speakers and topics or change scheduling of presentations as circumstances may dictate.