Fundamentals of Liver Disease- Abnormal Liver Tests

Tamar Taddei, MD, FAASLD is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of Digestive Diseases at Yale University and staff hepatologist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, CT. She directs the liver cancer program at VA Connecticut.  She is Associate Director of the MD/PhD Program at Yale School of Medicine.  She is a board certified gastroenterologist with a certificate of added qualification in transplant hepatology.  Her clinical interests include end stage liver disease, liver transplantation, and liver cancer.  She leads the VA Connecticut’s Cancer Care Tracking System Team, a group that has facilitated early detection of cancer and timely access to comprehensive cancer care through innovation in systems of care and technology.  She is co-PI of the Veterans Outcomes and Costs Associated with Liver disease (VOCAL) Study Group.

Hugo E. Vargas, MD, FAASLD is a Mayo Clinic Consultant in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and the Mayo Clinic Transplantation Center. He is the Medical Director for the Office of Clinical Research – Arizona, and a Professor of Medicine in the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine. Dr. Vargas is the Chair of the Clinical Research Subcommittee, and the Vice Chair of the Arizona Research Operations Management Team.  

Dr. Vargas has authored or coauthored more than 125 peer-reviewed articles. He is a Fellow of the AASLD, AGA, ACG, ASGE and ACP. He has been active in AASLD and has chaired the Annual Meeting Education Committee, Ethics Commiteee and co-chaired the AASLD/IDSA HCV group from 2016 to 2018. 

Dr. Oren Fix is the Medical Director of the Liver Transplant Program at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, Clinical Associate Professor at the Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, and Associate Provider Informaticist at Providence St. Joseph Health. He is board certified in Transplant Hepatology, Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, and Clinical Informatics. He is the co-chair for the AASLD COVID-19 Task Force's Clinical Oversight Subcommittee, and serves on the AASLD Nominating Committee, Online Learning Committee, and the GI/Transplant Hepatology Pilot Steering Task Force. He is on the editorial boards of Liver Transplantation and Hepatology Communications. Past service to AASLD includes chair of the Training and Workforce Committee and chair of the MOC Committee.

Victor J. Navarro, MD, MHCM, FAASLD earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine and completed medical residency followed by chief residency in Internal Medicine at Temple University.  Thereafter, he obtained fellowship training in Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Hepatobiliary Endoscopy at Yale University.  In 1994, Dr. Navarro joined the faculty of the Yale University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and the Director of its Liver Failure and Transplantation service. He was also the Director of the State of Connecticut Emerging Infections Program Liver Study Unit.  His scholarly work while at Yale focused on the population-based epidemiology of chronic liver disease. In 2019, Dr. Navarro earned his Masters in Healthcare Management from Harvard University.

As a mentor, Dr. Navarro has been directly responsible for the scholarly and clinical training of many young and mid-career health professionals and academicians.  Dr. Navarro’s chief sources of research funding are the National Institutes of Health as an investigator for the U.S. Drug Induced Liver Injury Network (DILIN), and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute for his study of Palliative Care in Patients with End Stage Liver Disease.

Manal F.Abdelmalek, MD, MPH, FAASLD is a tenured Professor of Medicine in the Divisionof Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Director of the Nonalcoholic Fatty LiverDisease (NAFLD) Clinical Research Program at Duke University. Since firstreporting on nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) as a cause of cryptogeniccirrhosis nearly 25 years ago, her clinical and research area of interest hasfocused on NAFLD / NASH, associated risk factors for disease acquisition andprogression and the discovery of novel approaches to treatment.   She has expertise in clinical-translationalresearch, the design and conduct of clinical trials, includinginvestigator-initiated, industry sponsored and NIH-funded clinical studies evaluatingnew therapies and biomarkers for NAFLD and NASH.  She collaborates extensively to translate newcompounds to first-in-man clinical studies and translate clinic-to-bench andbench-to-clinic research to define pathogenic mechanisms underlying NAFLD acquisitionand progression and new compounds into first-in-man clinical studies.  She is the lead Principal Investigator onseveral multicenter global studies, a member of the AASLD Global Outreach andEngagement Committee and past member of the AASLD Clinical Research Committee. Dr.Abdelmalek is a Fellow of American College of Physicians, American College ofGastroenterology and American Association for the Study of Liver Disease.  She is a standing member of NASH ClinicalResearch Network (NASH CRN) for the past 15 years, has published more than 200manuscripts and currently serves on the Editorial Board of HEPATOLOGY, theofficial journal of the AASLD.  

Cynthia Levy, MD, FAASLD is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Digestive Health and Liver Diseases and is the Associate Director of the Schiff Center for Liver Diseases at the University of Miami. She was awarded the Arthur Hertz Endowed Chair in Liver Diseases. Dr. Levy received her M.D. from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She completed house staff training both at her home University and subsequently at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital, in Miami, FL. Dr. Levy completed her three-year Gastroenterology Fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and a one-year Transplant Hepatology Fellowship at University of Florida in Gainesville, FL.

Dr. Levy’s clinical research program focuses on clinical trial development and conduct for autoimmune and cholestatic liver diseases, and in the study of porphyrias. Dr. Levy is a member of the steering committee for the International Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis Study group (IPSCSG) and serves as the Chair for the TARGET-Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC) national registry. She is a steering committee member for the Cholestatic and Autoimmune Liver Diseases SIG in AASLD, where she also serves as the vice-chair for the Practice Guidelines Committee. In addition, she advises several patient support groups and Foundations. Dr Levy’s expertise is recognized internationally.

Will Proctor, PhD, DABT is a Senior Scientist and Senior Director of Predictive Toxicology in the Department of Safety Assessment at Genentech, Inc. Prior to joining Genentech in 2013, Dr. Proctor earned his BS in Chemistry from Trinity College  and PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the laboratory of Dr. Dhiren Thakker with a focus on drug transport and pharmacokinetics.  He then performed postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health in the laboratory of Dr. Lance Pohl, with research centered on immune mechanisms of drug-induced liver injury (DILI). Will is a board-certified toxicologist and organizational leader with 10 years of experience in investigative and discovery toxicology. At Genentech, Dr. Proctor serves as the Senior Director of Predictive Toxicology, where he oversees the Investigative Toxicology Laboratory, Complex In Vitro Systems Laboratory, and non-clinical safety support for the Small-Molecule Drug Discovery (SMDD) organization. He is also actively involved in several cross-pharma consortia, with leadership roles in the Innovation and Quality (IQ) Microphysiological Systems Affiliate and the Non-clinical Working Group of the IQ DILI Affiliate.  In addition to these activities, Will has continued his research in mechanisms of DILI, including identifying and qualifying preclinical tools to better assess hepatotoxicity risk during drug discovery. 

Meena B. Bansal, MD, FAASLD is currently Professor of Medicine in the Division of Liver Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Mount Sinai Health Partners, and Vice President, Population Health for Quality and Efficiency. Dr. Bansal attended Harvard University and then Cornell Medical School. She completed her internship and residency at Cornell Medical School and her Gastroenterology Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in 2001.

Dr. Bansal joined the faculty at Mount Sinai in 2001 and from 2002-2009 she served as Transplant Hepatology Fellowship Director, leading one of the largest transplant hepatology fellowships in the United States. While remaining clinically active, she developed an NIH-funded basic research program focusing on understanding underlying molecular mechanisms of liver fibrosis and stellate cell biology in an effort to develop novel anti-fibrotic therapies. Her current research interests focus on the impact of HIV on hepatic inflammation and fibrosis. She became the Director of Translational Research in the Division of Liver Diseases in 2013 and has been principal investigator for numerous clinical trials ranging from HCV to NASH. In 2013, she became the Medical Director of all Hospital-based Clinics at Mount Sinai. In this latter role she developed an interest in population health and the challenges of the evolving health care landscape. Over the past 5 years, her focus has also been on building a population health infrastructure that will allow a large academic health system to be successful in value-based care.