Dr. Dimitrios Varrias graduated from Ioannina Medical School in Greece. After obtaining a master's degree in interventional cardiology, he underwent his post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital before starting his residency at the Albert Einstein/Jacobi Medical Center. Dr. Dimitrios Varrias has been awarded the New England Hellenic Medical and Dental Society Scholarship Award in 2019. His main area of expertise in the Das lab here in the cardiovascular research center is the field of microRNAs and extracellular vesicles. Currently, he is working on the development of novel biomarkers for heart failure and cardiomyopathies in general.
Dr. Tinatin Saralidze graduated from David Tvildiani Medical University in 2017. Before starting her residency at Jacobi, she was a lecturer in medical school for 2 years and did a cardiology internship in Georgia. Dr. Tinatin Saralidze is a “women in Cardiology ambassador” and has presented her science at national conferences. Dr. Tinatin Saralidze has been awarded the Humanism in Medicine Award in 2021 and the Davidoff Society of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Award in 2022, etc. Her research interests include cardiovascular, heart failure, echocardiography, and clinical cardiology.
Dr. Sumant Pargaonkar is a doctor and an experienced editor with a demonstrated history of working in the healthcare industry. He is skilled in healthcare, clinical research, and medical education and is a is a professional with a bachelor's degree focused on medicine from Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute. Dr. Sumant Pargaonkar is currently a resident physician at the Jacobi Medical Center and graduated from the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute in 2019. He served as a research assistant at Fortis Healthcare from 2013 to 2010 and as a visiting physician at Emory University Hospital, UNC Health Care, and Augusta University Health in 2020. Dr. Sumant Pargaonkar has rich volunteer experience as well and has published many articles in domestic and foreign journals.
Dr. Michail Spanos graduated with an MD from the National and Kapodistrian University. He has trained in clinical and research settings at several institutions, including the Mount Sinai Heart Division, New York (2016), the Center for Translational Medicine at Temple University Hospital, Philadelphia (2016), and the Milstein Division of Cardiology at Columbia University Hospital (2018). Since 2021, Dr. Spanos has served as a postdoctoral research scientist and physician at the Cardiovascular Research Center at MGH and Harvard Medical School. In 2022, he received the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation Post Graduate Scholarship and the New England Hellenic Medical and Dental Society Research Scholarship. His research focuses on the extracellular non-coding transcriptional landscape, particularly on exRNAs from different biofluids, as potential biomarkers for cardiovascular disease. This work contributes to the understanding and application of circulating RNA in therapeutic and diagnostic settings, specifically in cardiovascular diseases.
Dr. George Bazoukis is an Academic Associate at the University of Nicosia Medical School. Dr. George Bazoukis holds a Medical Degree (MD) from the University of Ioannina Medical School. He has an MSc in “Molecular and applied physiology” from the University of Athens, Medical School and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Ioannina Medical School. Dr. George Bazoukis completed the cardiology residency at the General Hospital of Athens, “Evangelismos” in Greece. Dr. George Bazoukis is Associate Editor of the BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, Clinical Case Reports, Journal of Electrocardiology, Guest Editor of Medicine, etc. His research interests include the risk stratification of sudden cardiac death, channelopathies, heart failure, cardiac imaging, and cardiac devices.
Dr. Damianos Kokkinidis is a board-certified cardiologist and is currently a Cardiovascular Medicine Fellow at Yale University School of Medicine. He earned his Ph.D. degree at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2015 and finished postdoctoral research at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center, University of Colorado, in 2017. He has served as an internal medicine resident at Jacobi Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, since 2020. Dr. Damianos Kokkinidis provides patient-centered care across a broad range of cardiovascular conditions, including coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, cardiovascular prevention, atrial fibrillation and other related arrhythmias, peripheral vascular disease, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. He spent a significant amount of his cardiology training in advanced cardiovascular imaging techniques such as performing transesophageal echocardiograms and interpreting cardiac computed tomography images, nuclear stress tests, and vascular ultrasound.
