Dr. Lawrence A. Leiter is Director of the Lipid Clinic, and Associate Director of the Clinical Nutrition and Risk Factor Modification Centre, at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto where he was also the Head of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism from 2000-2010. He is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Leiter has several research interests including clinical trials on the prevention of atherosclerosis, especially in diabetes, and the dietary and pharmacologic treatment of diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and obesity. He has over 450 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He was an investigator in many of the landmark diabetes trials including the DCCT, ACCORD, and ADVANCE and is on the Steering Committees of many ongoing outcome trials in both the diabetes and lipid areas.

Dr. Leiter is the Past-President of the Canadian Society of Endocrinology & Metabolism (CSEM) and is a past Chair of the Clinical and Scientific Section of the Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA). He has been involved in many national and international committees and consensus conferences including those of the International Diabetes Federation, CDA, Canadian Hypertension Education Program (CHEP), Canadian Cardiovascular Society (Dyslipidemia), and Obesity Canada.

For his work, he has received a number of awards including the CDA Frederick G. Banting Award and the American Diabetes Association Charles H Best Award (awarded to DCCT investigators), both for Distinguished Service, the 2005 CSEM Educator of the Year Award, and the 2006 CDA Gerald S. Wong Award in recognition of significant contributions to the diabetes community. He is also the 2016 recipient of the CDA Lifetime Achievement Award and the CSEM Robert Volpe Distinguished Service Award.

Dr. Ronald Goldenberg is a consultant endocrinologist affiliated with North York General Hospital in Toronto, Ontario and LMC Diabetes & Endocrinology in Thornhill. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine in 1987 at the University of Toronto, and his fellowship in Endocrinology & Metabolism in 1989 at the University of Toronto. His major areas of interest include clinical care of diabetes, obesity, dyslipidemia and thyroid disorders.

Dr. Goldenberg has been an investigator in a wide array of clinical trials in the areas of diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and dyslipidemia. He has been actively involved in Continuing Medical Education for the last 3 decades, with a strong focus on translating evidence-based medicine into practical patient care. As a key opinion leader amongst endocrinologists in Canada, Dr. Goldenberg continues to strive for improved patient outcomes by providing ongoing education to patients, physicians, nurses, dietitians and pharmacists both nationally and internationally He has been awarded an Honorable Citation by the Medical Staff Association of North York General Hospital for excellence in the practice of endocrinology and dedication to patient care in the community.

Dr. Goldenberg was a councillor on the Canadian Diabetes Association (now Diabetes Canada) Clinical & Scientific Section Executive Committee from 2010 to 2016. He was a member of the Steering Committee and an author for the 2013 CDA Clinical Practice Guidelines, lead author of the CDA March 2016 Interim Update and co-author of the November 2016 Interim Update on the Pharmacologic Management of Type 2 Diabetes. He is on the Executive Committee and an author for the 2018 Diabetes Canada CPGs. Dr. Goldenberg is also the head of eCHE for CSEM and a member of the Executive Board of the Canadian Society for the Study of the Aging Male.

Dr. Goldenberg is a past Medical Director of the Diabetes Education Centre at NYGH and North York Branson Hospital. He is a past chair of the Ontario Medical Association Section on Endocrinology & Metabolism and a previous President of the Toronto Diabetes Association.

Dr. Goldenberg is a longstanding member of the Canadian Diabetes Association, American Diabetes Association, Endocrine Society, American Association of Endocrinologists, European Association for the Study of Diabetes, Canadian Society of Endocrinology & Metabolism and a Fellow of The American College of Endocrinology.

Dr. Cheng is a member of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Trillium Health Partners (Credit Valley Hospital) in Mississauga and St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She completed medical school, internal medicine and Endocrinology training at the University of Toronto and has completed the Master Teacher Program offered through the Department of Medicine. She has served on the Expert Committee for the 2003 Canadian Diabetes Association clinical practice guidelines and the Steering and Expert Committees for the 2008 revision, along with the Dissemination & Implementation committee. She has served as Chair for the 2013 CDA clinical practice guidelines. She is currently the Chair of the Guidelines Committee of the Canadian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism. In addition to guidelines development, she is actively involved in continuing education and has received a Certificate of Recognition from the Ontario College of Family Physicians for her contributions to diabetes care and family medicine education.

Dr. Hertzel C. Gerstein is an Endocrinologist and Professor at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences, where he holds the Population Health Research Institute Chair in Diabetes. He is also Director of the Division of Endocrinology & Metabolism, Director of the Diabetes Care and Research Program and Deputy Director of the Population Health Research Institute.

Dr. Gerstein leads clinical research focused on: a) the prevention and therapy of diabetes and its many consequences, and b) the relationship between dysglycemia (a term he coined in 1995), glucose lowering and glucose lowering therapies on cardiovascular outcomes, cognitive impairment, other diabetes-related chronic consequences, and new diabetes. In the last few years, he has expanded his focus to testing strategies to achieve type 2 diabetes remission, has identified novel biomarkers for cardiovascular disease in diabetes, has collaborated with basic researchers and geneticists to identify the basis of glucose-related health consequences, and in 2016 he produced and distributed a music video to mitigate the impact of diabetes on affected people and their families. His research has been published in over 350 papers, spans 50 countries, and has been funded by the NIH, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Diabetes Association and the pharmaceutical industry.

Irene M. Hramiak, MD, FRCP(C), FACP is a Professor of Medicine, Western University, London, ON. She is the Chair/Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Western University. She is the current Department of Medicine Site Chief at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Dr. Hramiak practices at St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario. She has a strong clinical interest in diabetes, both Type 1 and Type 2.

Dr. Hramiak has held peer reviewed funding from JDRF, CDA, and the NIH since 1983. Dr. Hramiak was a co-investigator in the DCCT (1983-2000) – a major outcome trial in Type 1 diabetes mellitus. As a DCCT investigator, she was awarded the Charles H. Best Award for distinguished service by the American Diabetes Association in 1993. She was a Principal Investigator in the ACCORD (2000-2015) and ORIGIN trials (2003-2013), which assessed cardiac outcomes in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus. Dr. Hramiak is the Principal Investigator at Western University for the JDRF Ontario Clinical Trial Network (2011-2018). She is the Canadian Principal Investigator for the REMOVAL trial, an international trial funded by the JDRF (2011-2018) which is assessing macrovascular complications in Type 1 diabetes. She is the Principal Investigator in Ontario for the JDRF-sponsored artificial pancreas program (2011-2016).

In addition, she has been involved in over 50 pharmaceutical-sponsored clinical trials assessing new treatment strategies in both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes mellitus, and obesity. She serves as an external advisor to many groups and pharmaceutical companies with regards to diabetes and obesity.

David Mazer, M.D. is a Professor in the Departments of Anesthesia and Physiology at the University of Toronto. He received his medical training at the University of Saskatchewan (MD 1978) and worked as a family physician in Inuvik NWT (north of the arctic circle), Whakatane New Zealand, and Cudworth Saskatchewan before attending the University of Toronto to complete his residency in Anesthesia (FRCPC 1985). He subsequently completed his fellowship training in cardiovascular anesthesia research at the University of California San Francisco and has been actively engaged in clinical practice and research in Cardiac anesthesia and critical care since 1987. He has been Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, Coordinator of Critical Care and Medical Director of CVICU at St. Michael's Hospital, and Vice-Chair for Research for the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Toronto. He currently is Chair of the Research Ethics Board of St. Michael’s Hospital.

Dr. Mazer’s translational research has focused on improving the practice of Cardiac Anesthesia. His research program focuses on perioperative blood conservation, cardiac physiology and perioperative organ protection. He has co-authored over 100 peerreviewed publications, including practice guidelines and position statements related to perioperative transfusion and hemostasis from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society. He was a lead anesthesia investigator in the BART trial and is the principal investigator for TRICS III, a global study of transfusion triggers in cardiac surgery.

Dr Subodh Verma is an internationally renowned cardiac surgeon-scientist and Professor at the University of Toronto. He is the Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Surgery and a past recipient of the Howard Morgan Award for Distinguished Achievements in Cardiovascular Research and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Gold Medal in Surgery. He served as Canada Research Chair in Atherosclerosis for 10 years from 2007-2017. He is an appointee of the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons (AATS) and a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, Royal Society of Canada. According to Google Scholar, Dr Verma’s work has been cited nearly 28,000 times resulting in an h-index of 82.

Dr Verma has published numerous times in prestigious journals like the NEJM, Lancet, Circulation, JBC, JACC, Nature, and JCI. He continues to be an active contributor to several CCS guidelines and co-authored the 2018 Diabetes Canada guidelines and 2018 AATS consensus guidelines on bicuspid aortic valve-related aortopathy. Dr Verma has served on the American Heart Association Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia since 2008.

Dr Verma has leadership roles on 7 ongoing global heart failure trials in diabetes – Dapa-HF, DELIVER, DETERMINE-A, DETERMINE-B, EMPEROR-Preserved, EMPEROR-Reduced and SOLOIST-WHF – as well as the SELECT (semaglutide) and CLEAR SYNERGY (OASIS 9) trials. He oversees the CardioLink platform that is conducting surgically oriented RCTs and translational studies.

Dr Verma oversees a dynamic pre-clinical and translational research team that leverages pre-clinical disease models and clinical trial-derived data to identify novel mediators of cardiovascular and cardiometabolic disease as well as answer timely and relevant healthcare questions. This research has yielded 2 United States patents and is currently supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and HSF.

Active staff member in the division of endocrinology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto.

Administrative:

• Program Director for Adult Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Toronto.
• Endocrinology lead for the Toronto Central LHIN as part of the Ontario Diabetes Strategy.
• Co-author in one chapter in the 2013 CDA Guidelines and 2018 Diabetes Canada Guidelines.
• Member of the steering committee for the 2018 Diabetes Canada Guidelines
• National Consultant Editor of the Canadian Journal of Diabetes

Teaching:
Completed the Master Teacher program at the University of Toronto.

• Area of academic interest is undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education
• Past faculty advisor for the residents’ council for the Canadian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Awards:

• 2010 Young Teacher Award through the department of medicine at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center
• 2011 George From Award for postgraduate endocrinology teaching at the University of Toronto
• 2013 Continuing Medical Education Award through the department of medicine at Sunnybrook
• 2015 Robert Volpe Award for undergraduate endocrinology teaching at the University of Toronto
• 2015 University of Toronto Peters Boyd Academy clerkship teaching award
• 2015 University of Toronto Peters Boyd Academy problem based learning teaching award
• 2017 Sunnybrook Education Advisory Council Teaching Award