Members

Dr. Mora is a cardiologist and molecular epidemiologist conducting translational research in the prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with a focus on lipid and inflammatory mechanisms of cardiovascular disease. She is the Director of the Center for Lipid Metabolomics and Director of the Biorepository, Division of Preventive Medicine, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, with additional joint appointments in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and Women’s Health. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University, and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mora completed an internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and a cardiovascular disease fellowship at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she also obtained a Masters in Health Science (Epidemiology) from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Mora is board certified in cardiovascular disease and echocardiography, and serves on the Editorial Boards of JAMA Internal Medicine and Atherosclerosis. She is an Elected Member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Demler is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. She holds a joint appointment as a Biostatistician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she oversees the design and statistical analysis of a number of metabolomic studies and interventional clinical trials. Dr. Demler received her Ph.D. degree from Boston University where she worked with Drs Ralph D’Agostino and Michael Pencina on the statistical assessment of risk prediction models. Dr. Demler’s current methodological research focuses on the development of rigorous analytic workflows of the analysis of metabolomics data starting with quality control procedures, signal correction, and further statistical analysis of metabolomic studies. Dr. Demler’s clinical interests include cardiovascular disease prevention, lipids, biomarker research, and women’s health. The author of several highly cited peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Demler provides statistical leadership in the analysis of several randomized clinical trials and observational studies including Framingham Heart Study, Women’s Health Study, JUPITER trial, the VITAminD and OmegA-3 Trial (VITAL). Dr. Demler was awarded a five-year career development award (K01) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to investigate coronary heart disease risk and metabolic profiles of individuals with discordant lipids. Dr. Demler is also leading a project funded by the American Heart Association on building a flexible predictive network using large-scale database of Electronic Medical Records from several major Boston-area hospitals.

Key Publications
– Khera AV, Demler OV, Adelman SJ, Collins HL, Glynn RJ, Ridker PM, Rader DJ, Mora S. Cholesterol Efflux Capacity, High-Density Lipoprotein Particle Number, and Incident Cardiovascular Events: An Analysis From the JUPITER Trial (Justification for the Use of Statins in Prevention: An Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin). Circulation. 2017 Jun 20;135(25):2494-2504. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.116.025678. Epub 2017 Apr 27. PubMed PMID: 28450350; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5490983.
– Demler OV, Paynter NP, Cook NR. Tests of calibration and goodness-of-fit in the survival setting. Stat Med. 2015 May 10;34(10):1659-80. doi: 10.1002/sim.6428. Epub 2015 Feb 11. PubMed PMID: 25684707; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4555993.
– Demler OV, Pencina MJ, D’Agostino RB Sr. Misuse of DeLong test to compare AUCs for nested models. Stat Med. 2012 Oct 15;31(23):2577-87. doi: 10.1002/sim.5328. Epub 2012 Mar 13. PubMed PMID: 22415937; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3684152.

Dr. Dashti received academic training and research expertise in computer science, applied mathematics, and computational and structural biology. His research interests are mainly focused on applications of data science methods in biochemical medicine. At the Center of Lipid Metabolomics, Dr. Dashti is working on structural characteristics of small molecules and investigating these chemical compounds for discovering new preventive and predictive markers of cardiovascular disease. Dr. Dashti is an editorial member of the journal of Current Metabolomics and Systems Biology.

Sagar Dugani, MD PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Hospital Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. He completed the MD-PhD program from the University of Toronto, followed by residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and clinical fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto. He served as a consultant to The World Bank Group, Washington DC. He has worked with Samia Mora since 2013.
Dr. Dugani’s research focuses on (i) elucidating and reducing risk factors for premature heart disease, (ii) examining the role of ethnicity and rurality in developing type 2 diabetes and its complications, and (iii) improving care to reduce avoidable in-hospital mortality, particularly for type 2 diabetes. Through these efforts, he aims to reduce health inequities in the United States and beyond.
Dr. Dugani’s collaborations include researchers in the United States, Canada, Middle East, and India. He serves as project director for the Gulf PREVENT study based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and co-developed HEXAGON, a knowledge and research platform for Hospital Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic to improve hospital-based care. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), section editor of Archives of Medical Science, and associate editor of BMC Cardiovascular Diseases.
Dr. Dugani has received over 50 awards and honors for excellence in academic, research, and community service.

Dr. Shafqat Ahmad is a research fellow in the Molecular Epidemiology Research Unit at Uppsala University Sweden. Dr Ahmad’s research combines methods from the molecular and genetic epidemiology field including biochemistry, genomics, metabolomics, microbiota with relation to lifestyle factors in large scale population based studies to better understand the pathophysiology of cardiometabolic and cardiovascular disease. Shafqat’s research focuses on, a) studying gene-lifestyle interactions in lipoprotein subfractions and cardiometabolic and cardiovascular disease incidence, b) understanding the role of diet in cardiovascular diseases, and c) understanding the causal relationship between cardiometabolic biomarkers and metabolites.

Honors
-2019 Rising Star Award, European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD)
-2018 Best Young Research Award, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University Sweden
-2018 Finalist for the Young Investigator Award, American Heart Association
-2018 Top candidate for the Postdoctoral Position at Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University
-2015 Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation Fellow, Sweden
-2015 Nutricia Research Fellow, Singapore
-2015 Henning och Johan Throne-Holst stiftelse Fellow, Sweden

Key Publications
– Ahmad S, Moorthy MV, Demler OV, Hu FB, Ridker PM, Chasman DI, Mora S. Assessment of Risk Factors and Biomarkers Associated With Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Among Women Consuming a Mediterranean Diet. JAMA Netw Open. 2018 Dec 7;1(8):e185708. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.5708.
– Ahmad S, Mora S, Ridker PM, Hu FB, Chasman DI. Gene-Based Elevated Triglycerides and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Risk in the Women’s Genome Health Study. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2019 Jan;39(1):97-106.
– Ahmad S, Mora S, Franks PW, Orho-Melander M, Ridker PM, Hu FB, Chasman DI. Adiposity and Genetic Factors in Relation to Triglycerides and Triglyceride-Rich Lipoproteins in the Women’s Genome Health Study. Clin Chem. 2018 Jan;64(1):231-241.
– Ahmad S, Zhao W, Renström F, Rasheed A, Zaidi M, Samuel M, Shah N, Mallick NH, Shungin D, Zaman KS, Ishaq M, Rasheed SZ, Memon FU, Hanif B, Lakhani MS, Ahmed F, Kazmi SU, Deloukas P, Frossard P, Franks PW, Saleheen D. A novel interaction between the FLJ33534 locus and smoking in obesity: a genome-wide study of 14 131 Pakistani adults. Int J Obes (Lond). 2015 Aug 17. doi: 10.1038/ijo.2015.152.
– Ahmad S, Rukh G, Varga TV, Ali A, Kurbasic A, Shungin D, Ericson U, Koivula RW, Chu AY, Rose LM, Ganna A, Qi Q, Stančáková A, Sandholt CH, Elks CE, Curhan G, Jensen MK, Tamimi RM, Allin KH, Jørgensen T, Brage S, Langenberg C, Aadahl M, Grarup N, Linneberg A, Paré G; InterAct Consortium; DIRECT Consortium, Magnusson PK, Pedersen NL, Boehnke M, Hamsten A, Mohlke KL, Pasquale LT, Pedersen O, Scott RA, Ridker PM, Ingelsson E, Laakso M, Hansen T, Qi L, Wareham NJ, Chasman DI, Hallmans G, Hu FB, Renström F, Orho-Melander M, Franks PW. Gene × physical activity interactions in obesity: combined analysis of 111,421 individuals of European ancestry. PLoS Genet. 2013;9(7):e1003607

Paulette Chandler, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. At the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, she is a primary care physician and Associate Epidemiologist in the Division of Preventive Medicine. She also has an appointment in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care. Dr. Chandler received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and her medical degree from Duke Medical School. She completed an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a community health fellowship at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health where she also obtained a Masters in Public Health (Clinical Effectiveness). She is board certified in internal medicine.
Dr. Chandler’s research focuses on understanding the connection between nutrition, novel biomarkers generated through the “-omics” technology, and cancer prevention. Her current American Cancer Society Mentored Research Scholar Grant focuses on uncovering links between nutrition and colorectal cancer risk by using metabolomics to measure a wide profile of circulating small-molecule metabolites to comprehensively evaluate metabolic pathways linked to risk factors that may be more prevalent in those who eat a Western versus Mediterranean diet with the goal of prompting new therapies and dietary recommendations.
Dr. Chandler’s clinical interests include nutrition, cancer and diabetes prevention, and women’s health. She is passionate about educating the public on the power of healthy lifestyle choices for preventing disease and promoting wellness. She is actively involved with several randomized clinical trials and observational studies and serves on the Cancer Endpoints Committee of the VITAminD and OmegA-3 Trial (VITAL) and COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS) and serves as the Medical/Safety Officer for the COSMOS and the Magnesium and Blood Pressure clinical trial