David S.H. Bell, MD, FACP - Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Birmingham School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama

David S. H. Bell, MB, is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Medicine, and a leading authority on the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes. During his  distinguished career, he  has contributed more than 230 articles to the medical literature. He is an active researcher and has served as Director of the Endocrine Clinical Research Program at the University of Alabama Birmingham. Dr. Bell speaks nationally and internationally on the treatment of type 2 diabetes and its complications, and he is currently a member of the editorial boards of Endocrine Practice, Treatments in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Obesity and Metabolism. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Clinician Award from the American College of Endocrinology for outstanding contribution as a master educator and clinician and the Seale Harris Award from the Southern Medical Association for outstanding contributions to diabetes research.   

James H. O'Keefe Jr., MD - Professor of Medicine, University of Missouri at Kansas City, Mid-America Heart Institute, St. Lukes Hospital

James H. O'Keefe, Jr., M.D., is Director of Preventive Cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute and Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. His postgraduate training included a cardiology fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He has written 135 articles and 6 books on cardiovascular medicine, and he lectures extensively on the role of therapeutic lifestyle changes and drug therapy in cardiovascular risk reduction. He is actively involved in patient care. 

George L. Bakris, MD, FASN, FAHA - Director, Hypertension/Clinical Research Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois

Dr. Bakris has published over 470 articles and book chapters in the areas of diabetic kidney disease, hypertension and progression of nephropathy. He is the Editor or Co-Editor of eight books, in the areas of Kidney Disease Progression and Diabetes. He has also served as the co-principal investigator of an NIH Clinical Research training grant (K30) to train clinical researchers (1999-2004). He chaired the National Kidney Foundation Consensus report on blood pressure and impact on renal disease progression (2000) and served on many national guideline committees including: the Joint National Committee Writing Groups 6 & 7 writing committees (1997, 2003) and the JNC 7 executive committee (2003), the American Diabetes Association Clinical Practice Guideline Committee (2002-2004), the National Kidney Foundation (K-DOQI) Blood Pressure Guideline committee (2002-2004), the National Kidney Foundation (K-DOQI) Diabetes Guideline committee (2003-2005), and the NIH National High Blood Pressure Education Program Working Group on Hypertension and Renal Disease (1994). He also served as an expert-consultant to the Cardio-renal Advisory Board of the FDA (1993-2003). Dr. Bakris is also the past- president of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (2000-2002) and the President-elect of the American Society of Hypertension (ASH). He is the current Editor of Am J Nephrology, the Hypertension Section Editor of Up-to-Date, andco-Editor of J Hum Hypertension.  Dr. Bakris received his medical degree from the Chicago Medical School and completed residency in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine where he also did a research fellowship in Physiology and Biophysics. He then completed fellowships in Nephrology and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Chicago. From 1988 to 1991, he served as Director of Renal Research at the Ochsner Clinic and was a faculty member of Tulane University School of Medicine. He was also Professor and Vice Chairman of Preventive Medicine and Director of the Rush University Hypertension Center in Chicago, IL from 1993 until 2006. Currently, he is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Hypertensive Diseases Unit in the Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Metabolism and Hypertension at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine.