UC San Diego BEACON Team
UC San Diego BEACON is led by a world renowned team of clinicians/researchers at University of California San Diego.
We are dedicated to conducting innovative research to address important clinical questions about lipoprotein(a), abbreviated Lp(a).
Director
Pam Taub, MD, FACC, FASPC
Director of UC San Diego BEACON
Director of Preventive Cardiology
Director of Step Family Foundation Cardiovascular Rehabilitation and Wellness Center
Professor of Medicine
Pam R. Taub, MD, FACC, FASPC is a board-certified cardiologist and internationally recognized expert in cardiometabolic disease.
She is the director of Preventive Cardiology and the founding director of the Step Family Foundation Cardiac Rehabilitation and Wellness Center , and Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego. Dr. Taub was responsible for all aspects of creating the center, which provides a comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation program for patients with established heart disease.
Her clinical practice focuses on preventive cardiology, lipidology, and women's cardiovascular health. Her research focuses on assessing the impact of behavioral, technological, and pharmacological interventions on cardiometabolic disease. Dr. Taub is a federally funded researcher with continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health for the past 15 years. She has also received research funding from the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and American Heart Association. She is an experienced clinical trialist and serves on the executive committee for multiple international clinical trials focused on novel cardiovascular therapies.
Dr. Taub is widely published (with over 125 publications) and has authored high-impact publications in top peer-reviewed journals that have impacted clinical practice.
Dr. Taub holds multiple leadership positions in professional societies. She is a fellow and a former board member of the American Society of Preventive Cardiology, a fellow and prior member of the American College of Cardiology Prevention of CV Disease Section Leadership Council, and currently the Chair of the American Heart Association Women in Cardiology Committee.
Steering Committee
Ehtisham Mahmud, MD, FACC, MSCAI
Division Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine
Executive Director of Medicine at the Cardiovascular Institute
Director of Interventional Cardiology and Cardiac Cath Lab
Edith and William Perlman Chair in Clinical Cardiology
Ehtisham Mahmud, MD, is a board-certified interventional cardiologist who specializes in complex coronary procedures, including complex coronary, structural, lower extremity and carotid interventions. As Executive Director of Medicine at the Cardiovascular Institute at UC San Diego Health, Dr. Mahmud leads one of the largest academic cardiovascular programs in the western United States.
Dr. Mahmud completed fellowships in coronary and peripheral vascular interventions at Emory University in Atlanta and cardiovascular medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. He also completed an internal medicine residency at UC San Diego and earned his medical degree at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and serves as the president of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions. Dr. Mahmud has been voted one of the top physicians in San Diego by the San Diego county medical society and among the top 1 percent of interventional cardiologists in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.
Michael Wilkinson, MD, FACC, FNLA
Director of Advanced Lipid Disorders Treatment Program
Associate Professor of Medicine
Michael Wilkinson, MD, is a board-certified cardiologist and lipidologist who directs the advanced lipid treatment program at UC San Diego Health. His expertise includes diagnosing and managing inherited forms of dyslipidemia, and the primary and secondary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease through risk factor management and lipid-modifying therapies.
Dr. Wilkinson currently serves as president of the Pacific Lipid Association Chapter of the National Lipid Association and is also on the National Lipid Association Board of Directors. Dr. Wilkinson's research interests include lifestyle change and novel drug therapies for patients who are at risk for cardiovascular disease, including those with cardiometabolic diseases and all forms of dyslipidemia, including familial hypercholesterolemia and lipoprotein(a).
He has received grant support for his research from the American College of Cardiology and the National Institutes of Health, among other agencies. He has published many manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, contributed to book chapters, and served as a co-editor for a textbook focused on the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease through nutrition and diet. He is an associate editor of the American Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Harpreet S. Bhatia, MD, MAS, FACC, FAHA, FASPC
Associate Program Director for General Cardiology Fellowship
Director, Exploration and Innovation, School of Medicine
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Harpreet S. Bhatia, MD, MAS is a cardiologist and epidemiologist with a clinical and research focus on the prevention of cardiovascular disease. As an assistant professor of medicine, he is involved in training medical students, residents and fellows at UC San Diego School of Medicine. He is also the assistant program director for the Cardiovascular Diseases fellowship. His research interests include prevention of cardiovascular diseases, especially related to lipids and lipoprotein(a), and the use and improvement of coronary artery calcium scoring. He receives grant support for his research from the National Institutes of Health and his work has been published in leading academic journals including Circulation, JACC, JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging, Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, JAMA Cardiology, and EJPC.
Dr. Bhatia was chief fellow during his fellowship in cardiovascular disease at UC San Diego School of Medicine, where he also completed a master's degree in clinical research and post-doctoral fellowship in cardiovascular epidemiology. He completed residency training in internal medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, where he also served as chief resident. Dr. Bhatia earned his medical degree from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
Mattheus Ramsis, MD
Director, Cardiology Informatics
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Mattheus Ramsis, MD, is an Assistant Professor and Medical Director of Cardiology Informatics at the University of California, San Diego Cardiovascular Institute. He has previously trained in internal medicine at Harvard Medical School-Brigham and Women's Hospital, with subsequent training in cardiovascular disease, trial design, and preventative cardiology at the University of California San Francisco where he served as a clinical instructor. Awards include the National Institutes of Health T-32 award, the Bristol-Myers-Squibb-Foundation Career Development Award, and the American College of Cardiology Executive Board Foundation Award.
His previous and ongoing work consists of validating algorithms for remote cardiovascular disease detection, leveraging artificial intelligence to predict disease using electronic health record data, and developing digital biomarkers. He collaborates with multidisciplinary teams of clinicians, researchers, and engineers to leverage data from wearable devices, biomarkers, and electronic health records to create innovative solutions, perform research, and enhance the quality of care.
Statistician
Raphael Cuomo, PhD, MPH, CPH, FRSPH
Co-Director, Graduate Education in Clinical Research
Associate Professor of Medicine
Raphael E. Cuomo, PhD, is a widely recognized biomedical scientist and clinical epidemiologist whose work focuses on identifying risk factors for non-communicable diseases through the use of large-scale clinical data and biostatistical modeling. He is board certified in public health by the National Board of Public Health Examiners, a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, and an elected member of the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health.
Dr. Cuomo plays a key role in research efforts at UC San Diego BEACON, where his work examines the impact of lipoprotein(a) through analyses of clinical databases encompassing over ten million patients. His research integrates electronic health records, biomarker data, and health systems analytics to study the role of lipids in chronic disease. As Co-Director of Graduate Education in Clinical Research at UC San Diego School of Medicine, he is actively involved in training medical students, residents, and fellows in advanced methods for clinical and translational research.
He has served as principal investigator on multiple externally funded studies and has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles in various leading journals including JAMA Internal Medicine, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, and BMJ. His work has been featured in numerous media outlets, including Newsweek, NBC News, CNET, and the Daily Mirror. Dr. Cuomo is also a section editor for JMIR Infodemiology and a handling editor for Frontiers in Public Health.
Collaborators
Brett C. Meyer, MD
Professor, Department of Neurosciences
Co-Director, UC San Diego Stroke Center, Department of Neurosciences
Telestroke Director
Clinical Director of Enterprise UC San Diego Telehealth
Medical Director of Population Health Risk Adjustment
UC San Diego Health, San Diego, California
Brett C. Meyer, MD, is a Stroke Neurologist and Co-Director of the Stroke Center at UC San Diego Medical Center, and is a Professor of Clinical Neurosciences in the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego. He is the Clinical Director of Telehealth for the UC San Diego Enterprise Telehealth Program. He is Board certified in Neurology, and subspecialty Board certified in Cerebrovascular diseases, by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He specializes in acute cerebrovascular disease therapies and technological evaluation and treatment techniques as the Director of UC San Diego Stroke Telehealth network and initiatives.
Dr. Meyer’s clinical research is varied, encompassing clinical stroke scale evaluations, acute and hyper- acute therapies for stroke, and Internet applications of telemedicine for the evaluation and treatment of stroke. Dr. Meyer was the Principal Investigator for an NIH-SPOTRIAS clinical trial assessing the use of telemedicine in acute stroke management. He is currently the PI of a Regional Coordinating Center for NIH-STROKENET, which is developing late phase stroke therapies for acute, prevention, and rehabilitation.
In his role as Clinical Director of Telehealth, he is responsible for the clinical development, implementation, and medical oversight of numerous telehealth initiatives for primary care and all specialties throughout the entire health system and its external partners.
His telemedicine research ranges from developing telestroke evidence and improving operations, to publishing multiple articles on overall Telehealth operations for academic health centers and various enterprise telehealth initiatives
Dr. Meyer has presented at major academic meetings, and has been published in numerous journals including Lancet Neurology, Annals of Neurology, Stroke, Neurology, The International Journal of Stroke, The Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases, Telemedicine and eHealth, Academic Medicine, and Quality Management in Healthcare.
Rohit Loomba, MD, MHSc
Chief, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Director, UC San Diego MASLD Research Center
Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
Dr. Rohit Loomba is a Professor of Medicine (with tenure), Chief, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, at the University of California at San Diego. He is an internationally recognized thought leader in translational research and innovative clinical trial design in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and non-invasive assessment of liver disease using advanced imaging modalities.
Dr. Loomba is the founding director of the UC San Diego MASLD Research Center, which fosters collaborative team science where a multi-disciplinary team of researchers are conducting cutting edge research in all aspects of NAFLD including non-invasive biomarkers, genetics, epidemiology, clinical trial design, imaging end-points, and integrated OMICs using microbiome, metabolome and lipidome. This integrated approach has led to several innovative applications such as establishment of MRI-PDFF as a non-invasive biomarker of treatment response in early phase trials in NASH, which has now been adopted in more than 100 clinical trials conducted worldwide. He holds several patents on non-invasive biomarkers of NASH and fibrosis.
His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health as a Principal Investigator including two R01s, three U01 (two NIDDK and one from NIAAA), clinical core director of P30 (NIDDK) and project director P01 (NHLBI) grant mechanisms, Foundation of NIH, as well as several large multicenter, multi-million dollar investigator initiated research projects funded by the industry. He is the Principal Investigator, UC San Diego, for the NIDDK-sponsored NASH Clinical Research Network and the Liver Cirrhosis Network. He also serves as on the Scientific Advisory Board of numerous biotechnology and large pharmaceutical companies and guides clinical drug development and biomarker discovery programs globally.
He serves on the Editorial Board of Gastroenterology, Journal of Hepatology, GUT and Nature Reviews in Gastroenterology and Hepatology. He recently completed a 5-year term as the Deputy Editor of HEPATOLOGY, the official journal of the AASLD. Currently, he serves as the co-Editor of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, an international journal in the field of gastroenterology and Hepatology. Dr. Loomba has published more than 500 manuscripts and has an H-index of 145. He has been consistently listed among the top 1% of the globally highly cited scientists across all fields since 2019 by Web of Science. He is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), and the Association of American Physicians (AAP).
Staff/Research Fellows
Marissa Dzotsi, MPH
Clinical Research Coordinator
UC San Diego Health
Marissa Dzotsi is a Clinical Research Coordinator with the Preventive Cardiology team at UC San Diego Health. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Biology, with double minors in Chemistry and Nonprofit Social Enterprise, from the University of San Diego, and her Master of Public Health with a concentration in Health Policy from the University of California, San Diego.
Marissa supports a range of cardiovascular research initiatives and leads coordination efforts for the clinical trials focused on lipoprotein(a). She has been instrumental in the recruitment of patients for the multiple Lp(a) clinical trials at UC San Diego including the ACCLAIM and OCEAN(a) studies.
She is passionate about advancing preventive cardiology through innovative research and bridging clinical insights with health policy to improve patient outcomes.
Rebecca Ocher, MD
UC San Diego Cardiovascular Medicine Fellow
Dr. Rebecca Ocher is a first- year cardiovascular medicine fellow at UC San Diego, with an interest in preventive cardiology, general cardiology, and women's cardiovascular health. A San Diego native, she earned her undergraduate degree in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley, completed medical school at UC Riverside, and pursued her internal medicine residency at UCLA.
Her current research at UC San Diego BEACON is assessing the interaction between Lp(a) and inflammatory diseases such as Lupus. Rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease.
She also has a passion for medical education and completed a specialized course in medical education during her residency at UCLA.
Gouri Dharmavaram, MD
UC San Diego Cardiovascular Medicine Fellow
Dr. Gouri Dharmavaram is a second-year cardiovascular medicine fellow at UC San Diego, with an interest in cardiovascular imaging. A Chicago native, she earned her undergraduate degree from University of Illinois at Chicago, completed medical school at Case Western in Cleveland Ohio, and pursued her internal medicine residency at UC San Diego.
Her current research at the UC San Diego BEACON is assessing how Lp(a) levels impact coronary calcium and plaque characteristics on CT coronary imaging.
Mustafa Naguib
UC San Diego School of Medicine Student
Mustafa Naguib is a fourth-year medical student at UC San Diego School of Medicine with an interest in cardiology and medical innovation. Born and raised in San Jose, California, he completed his Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Bioengineering: Biotechnology at UC San Diego, earned a Master of Translational Medicine degree from UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, and is currently completing his medical school training with plans to pursue an internal medicine residency.
His current research at UC San Diego BEACON involves assessing the relationship between Lp(a) and cardiovascular diseases such as aortic stenosis and peripheral arterial disease.
He has additionally pursued his passion in medical education by serving as an inaugural tutor at the UC San Diego SOM Peer Tutoring program and as a teaching assistant for the preclinical histology course.
Sarina Chadha
UC San Diego School of Medicine Student
Sarina Chadha is a first-year medical student at UC San Diego School of Medicine with interests in general and interventional cardiology, as well as cardiovascular research. Originally from the Bay Area, she completed her undergraduate studies at UC San Diego and has prior clinical experience working as an EMT.
Sarina is currently involved in a research project examining the association between elevated lipoprotein(a) levels and stroke risk in young adults.
She is dedicated to combining scientific investigation with compassionate clinical care.
Kaden Hubly
UC San Diego School of Medicine Student
Kaden Hubly is a first-year medical student at UC San Diego. His current research at the BEACON is focused on characterizing the relationship between Lp(a) levels and age at first cardiovascular diagnosis across hereditary risk groups.
Kaden is passionate about cardiovascular disease prevention and the role of translational research in improving clinical care for individuals at risk of premature cardiovascular disease.
He aims to bring awareness toward earlier intervention in dyslipidemia.
Sawye Raygani
UC San Diego School of Medicine Student
Sawye Raygani is a third-year medical student at UC San Diego School of Medicine with a strong interest in how diet and hormones influence cardiovascular and metabolic health. Originally from Los Gatos, she earned her BS in Human Biology from Stanford University in 2023.
At UC San Diego, she serves on the Student Council as the Co-Director of Community Engagement and tutors fellow medical students through the Peer Tutoring Program.
She is passionate about medical education and preventive care and hopes to pursue a career that integrates patient-centered research and teaching. Her research at UC San Diego BEACON will focus on exploring the relationship between estrogen and lipoprotein(a).
History of Lp(a) research at UC San Diego:
UC San Diego is recognized as the world leader for Lipoprotein (a), translational research and clinical trials. The early groundbreaking work of Sam Tsimikas, MD, and Joseph Witztum, MD, established that Lp(a) is a genetically inherited risk factor that increases risk of heart attack and stroke. They developed the E06 antibody that uniquely binds to oxidized phospholipids (OxPL) and were the first to demonstrate that almost all the OxPL found on plasma lipoproteins were carried on Lp(a).
Together with others they demonstrated in experimental and clinical studies that OxPL was a major mediator of the enhanced atherogenicity of Lp(a). Early research in their lab was the first to show that targeting the apo(a) gene in the liver with antisense oligonucleotides (ASO) led to lowering of Lp(a) levels and were the proof-of-concept studies that led industry to develop both ASO and siRNA approaches to lower Lp(a) in humans that are now in late-stage development.
They also developed assays to measure OxPL on apoB lipoproteins that are widely used in both clinical trials of Lp(a) lowering and for enhanced risk stratification of patients in terms of cardiovascular disease.
Some of their seminal papers include:
- Oxidized Phospholipids, Lp(a) Lipoprotein, and Coronary Artery Disease
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa043175 - Lipoprotein(a) Reduction in Persons with Cardiovascular Disease
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31893580/ - Antisense Oligonucleotide Lowers Plasma Levels of Apolipoprotein (a) and Lipoprotein (a) in Transgenic Mice
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.108.786822
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109711003652