Agenda

Wednesday, 23rd June

Dr. Ali Nsair, MD

Dr. Nsair is the Director of the Heart Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support Program at UCLA Health. He received his medical degree from the University of Alberta, where he also completed his Internal Medicine residency and Cardiology fellowship. He received advanced training in Advanced Heart Failure and Interventional Cardiology at UCLA Medical Center and a post-doctoral fellowship in Regenerative Therapies. As well, Dr. Nsair is an Interventional Cardiologist with focus on the high risk interventions in patients with advanced cardiac disease and structural interventions in patients with valvular disease. 

His research interests include cardiovascular regenerative and rejuvenation therapies, as well as advanced studies of mechanical circulatory support devices in cardiogenic shock and novel heart failure medical therapies. Furthermore, his research interest involves mechanical circulatory support in patients with advanced heart failure and cardiogenic shock. He is involved in multiple national and international clinical and translational trials and is the PI for a basic and translational research lab. Understanding the native endogenous cardiac progenitor during the fetal stage will offer a model to recapitulate a multipotent progenitor cell from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) to be used in cardiovascular regenerative therapies.

Dr. Nsair is also the Director of the Sports Cardiology Program at UCLA. The UCLA Sports Cardiology Program is the official program that provides care for the Los Angeles Lakers NBA team and the Los Angeles Dodgers MLB team. The UCLA Sports Cardiology Program offers professional level care and cardiac clearance for elite athletes and sports enthusiasts.  His research interest in Sports Cardiology and Advanced Heart Failure includes novel wearable technology for remote telemonitoring of patients from home as well as athletes to biometric monitoring. 

Session moderator: Neveen El-Farra, MD, FACP

Dr. Neveen El-Farra is a Professor of Clinical Medicine and a Hospitalist in the Department of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) at UCLA. Dr. El-Farra currently serves as an Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program in the Department of Medicine at UCLA. She served as the Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA from December 2014 through July 2019.   She has received numerous awards for her teaching, service and humanism. Among these awards and honors include the Award for Excellence in Education from DGSOM.  She is a five-time recipient of the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching from medical students and residents.  She was also selected as a faculty inductee for the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS) in 2017, and currently serves as the GHHS Chapter Advisor.  Most recently, she was selected as a recipient of the 2019-2020 Distinguished Teaching Senate Faculty Award at UCLA.

Dr. El-Farra served as a physician advisor to UCLA Health International Services from August 2018- June 2020.  As a physician advisor, she participated in several key international collaborations and projects with UCLA Health. In July 2020, Dr. El-Farra was appointed as Medical Director for International Services for UCLA Health where she works closely with the team on strategic initiatives and patient care operations.  She is committed to ensuring that international patients at UCLA Health receive high quality, empathetic, and culturally humble patient care.  Dr. El-Farra takes great pride to be at UCLA Health and be part of an institution that upholds a vision to “heal humankind one patient at time by alleviating suffering and delivering acts of kindness”.