US Medical Advisors
Dr Steven Cohen
Dr Steven Cohen is Professor of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine, Neurology and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and Chief of Pain Medicine and Director of the Blaustein Pain Treatment Center at Johns Hopkins. He obtained his medical degree at Mount Sinai, completed an anesthesiology residency at Columbia University, and a pain fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr Cohen has been active in teaching and pain research, having published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the past 15 years. Among his major contributions are; the development of an FDA-approved denervation technique for treating sacroiliac joint pain, helping set up the first war zone pain clinic, performing the first studies evaluating the epidural administration of biological agents for pain, serving as the Senior Investigator on the Congressionally-mandated study evaluating compounded topical creams for chronic pain, serving as Committee Chair for the ASRA/ AAPM/ ASA ketamine guidelines for pain management, and conducting research on facet arthropathy and epidural steroid injections that has changed the way the conditions are viewed and treated.
Currently, Dr Cohen is Chair of an international consortium developing guidelines on the treatment of lumbar facet arthritis. His articles have been featured in some of the top general medical journals including “The Lancet”, “Mayo Clinic Proceedings”, “CMAJ”, “BMJ”, “Annals of Internal Medicine”, and “JAMA”. Dr Cohen’s research has also been featured in the New York Times four times and he has been the first author on the “Pain” chapter in the three most recent editions of “Cecil Textbook of Medicine”.
Professor Vince Fischetti
Professor Vince Fischetti is Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology at the Rockefeller University. He received a Ph.D. in Microbiology from New York University School of Medicine in 1970.
Professor Fischetti has over 45 years of experience in the anti-infectives field, nearly all of which has been spent at Rockefeller. His laboratory was responsible for elucidating the coiled-coil structure of streptococcal M protein and defining the conserved region of this molecule for a non-type-specific vaccine against S. pyogenes. It was also the first to identify lytic enzymes as novel therapeutics targeting major antibiotic resistant bacterial pathogens. The first lysin against methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) infections is currently in phase 3 testing; the first antibiotic alternative to achieve this milestone. Professor Fischetti’s group was also the first to identify the LPXTG motif, necessary for attaching surface proteins on the gram-positive cell wall which is now a target for antibiotic development.
Professor Fischetti is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the National Academy of Inventors, and was the recipient of two NIH MERIT awards. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Infection and Immunity for 10 years and serves as Advisory Editor for the Journal of Experimental Medicine and Trends in Microbiology among others. Professor Fischetti serves on the scientific advisory board of ContraFect, Bioharmony, Lumen and Persica and the Trudeau institute where he is also a Trustee. Professor Fischetti has published over 250 primary research articles, over 70 textbook chapters and has co-edited two major books on gram-positive pathogens. He is an inventor of over 40 issued patents dealing with the control of infectious diseases.
Dr Chris Gilligan, MD, MBA
Dr. Gilligan completed his medical studies at Yale University. His initial post-graduate training was in Emergency Medicine, with subspecialty training in Pain Medicine, where he has focused on pain of spinal origin.
Dr Gilligan’s clinical expertise is focused on the treatment of pain related to disorders of the spine. He also treats patients with a wide range of pain conditions, including cancer related pain, complex regional pain syndrome, and post-herpetic neuralgia. Dr Gilligan’s research focuses on clinical trials of new interventions, devices and medications for the treatment of pain.
Following on residencies at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as well as a Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital during which time Dr Gilligan completed his specialist training in Pain and Anesthesiology. He currently heads the Division of Pain Medicine, is Vice Chair for Strategy,
Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Brigham & Women’s Hospital. Dr Gilligan is an Assistant Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School.
Joshua Hirsch, MD FACR FSIR FSNIS
Dr. Joshua Hirsch is an Interventional Neuroradiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is the Vice Chair of Procedural Services, Service Line Chief of Interventional NeuroRadiology, Chief of NeuroInterventional Spine Service and has his academic appointment at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hirsch is a past president of both the American Society of Spine Radiology (ASSR) and the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS). Dr. Hirsch is the President Elect of the American Society of Neuroradiology and the chair of the Cerebrovascular Coalition as well as the Health Policy Committee of the SNIS.
Dr. Hirsch is considered a pioneer in minimally invasive treatments of the spine. He performed the first vertebral augmentation in New England and been a thought leader in that space over many years.
In terms of Health Policy and Economics, Dr. Hirsch is very active at multiple societies including serving as the multi-year representative of the ASNR to the RUC as well as being the founding chair of the Health Policy and Economics Committee at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery. He chairs the future trends and academic committees of the economic commission at the American College of Radiology. Dr. Hirsch is a grant recipient from the Neiman Health Policy Institute where he serves as a senior affiliate research fellow.
Dr. Hirsch has received numerous awards has published more than 500 articles in the peer reviewed literature and authored many chapters and edited many books. Dr. Hirsch is a founding editor of the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery (JNIS) and has served on multiple other editorial advisory boards.