Advisory Boards

Mission

The mission of the Aab CVRI is to discover new pathways of disease and to invent new methods to diagnose and treat cardiovascular diseases.  We focus on the following areas of research: Vascular inflammation, heart failure, cardiac ischemia, and thrombosis.  We also explore how stress affects components of the cardiovascular system, including endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, cardiac myocytes, and platelets.  Our goal is to translate our discoveries in these areas into novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to treat people with cardiovascular disease.

Advisory Board Members

Richard T. Aab

Richard T. Aab is an American entrepreneur and successful businessman. In 2007 he named the Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute with a $5 million gift. The Aab CVRI is grateful to Mr. Aab for his generosity and support.

In 1996, Mr. Aab co-founded and served as Chairman of US LEC Corp., a leading publicly owned telecommunications carrier based in Charlotte, NC, providing integrated voice, data and Internet services to medium and large businesses and enterprise organizations throughout the United States. US LEC served over 28,000 business customers in 115 markets, employed over 1,000 people and had annualized revenues of approximately $425 million in 2006. US LEC merged with PAETEC Corp., a privately owned leading telecommunications carrier in 2007. The combined entity, PAETEC Corp., serviced business customers in 84 of the 100 largest MSA's, employed 5,000 people and had revenues of over $2.1 billion. Mr. Aab was Vice Chairman and a Director of the combined entity. PAETEC was acquired by Windstream Corp. on November 30, 2011 for $2.1 billion.

Prior to US LEC, Mr. Aab founded and was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for 14 years of ACC Corp., a highly successful publicly owned telecommunications services company headquartered in Rochester, NY. ACC Corp. was acquired for over $1.1 billion in 1998 and is now part of AT&T. In 2001, Mr. Aab founded and served as Chairman of Ovation Payroll, Inc. a very successful privately held payroll solutions company headquartered in Rochester, New York. When it was acquired by Heartland Payment Systems in December 2012, the company employed approximately 160 people and had annualized revenues approaching $20 million.

Mr. Aab is a Trustee of the University of Rochester as well as a Member of the Board of Governors of the University's Medical Center, and is the benefactor of its research facility the Aab Institute of Biomedical Sciences in, as well as the Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute, which was named in his honor in August 2007. Mr. Aab also served as co-chairman of the University of Rochester Medical Center capital campaign, which raised $696 million for the Medical Center.

Tansukh V. Ganatra

Profession: Senior Executive in various entities
Education: University of Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa: 1961- 1966, Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
Born in Uganda, East Africa, Mr. Ganatra (age 71 years) migrated to the USA in September 1969 and has spent his entire career in Telecommunications.

He co-founded US LEC Corp. in June 1996, which eventually merged with PAETEC Holding Corp. in March 2007. Subsequent to that merger, Mr. Ganatra served as a Director and Audit Committee Member of the publicly traded PAETEC Holding Corp. until its acquisition by Windstream (NASDAQ Global Select Market-“WIN”) on 12/1/2011.

Prior to his tenure at PAETEC, he served as Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of US LEC Corp. from July 1999 until his retirement in December 2001. He also served as President and Chief Operating Officer from June 1996 until July 1999. From 1987 to 1996, Mr. Ganatra held various positions with ACC Corp., including serving as its President and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining ACC Corp., Mr. Ganatra held various positions during a 19-year career with Rochester Telephone Corporation (currently known as Frontier Communications), culminating with the position of Director of Network Engineering.

Presently, Mr. Ganatra resides in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife Sarla and son Rajesh and holds Advisory positions in various emerging companies and charity-based institutions. The Ganatra family devotes a lot of time with spiritual/religious, educational and also healthcare based institutions in their commitments to “give back” to the societies.

Louis G. Lange, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Lange has 22 years experience in academic medicine at Harvard and Washington University, where he served as Chief of Cardiology and Professor of Medicine at Jewish Hospital from 1985-1992 and was one of the first academicians in molecular cardiology. He founded CV Therapeutics based on this broad field and as Chairman, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer, led the IPO in 1996 and the overall pipeline development and the initiatives for US FDA and European EMEA approval for Ranexa®, a first-in-class late sodium channel blocker and the first anti-anginal drug class approved in 30 years in the US. He also led the approval of Lexiscan®, a first-in-class adenosine A2a receptor agonist for use in myocardial perfusion imaging studies. Dr. Lange oversaw the commercial success of CV Therapeutics and its sale to Gilead in 2009 for $1.4 billion dollars. As a member of the Board of Trustees at the University of Rochester since 1998 and as Chair of the Health Affairs committee that oversees all of the medical operations for five years, Dr. Lange has been part of the leadership team for strategic re-invigoration of the medical center with construction of two research buildings and recruitment of over 100 faculty members. As a member of BIO Board of Directors (the trade organization of biotech companies) from 1999 to 2009, Dr. Lange led the largest committee of member companies for two years and was picked as one of two biotech executives to attend the ceremonies at the White House for the signing of the Bioterrorism bill in 2004. Dr. Lange has been on numerous other public and private Boards in both the non-profit and for-profit arena. (from Asset Management Ventures)

Scientific Advisory Board Members

Edward A. Fisher, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D.

The Leon H. Charney Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), Pediatrics, and Cell Biology; Director, Marc and Ruti Bell Vascular Biology and Disease Program; Director, Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease; Director of Translational Research, Clinical and Translational Science Institute, NYU School of Medicine, Adjunct Faculty, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Rockefeller University, New York, NY.

José Jalife, M.D.

Professor of Internal Medicine and The Cyrus and Jane Farrehi Professor of Cardiovascular Research, Professor of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, Co-Director, Center for Arrhythmia Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

Aldons J. Lusis, Ph.D.

Vice Chair, Department of Human Genetics, Professor, Department of Human Genetics, Professor, Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, Professor, Department of Medicine and Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA.

Jeffery D. Molkentin, Ph.D.

Professor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics, Microbiology and Immunology Pulmonary, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH.

Eric N. Olson, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair, Department of Molecular Biology, Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair, Annie and Willie Nelson Professor, Pogue Distinguished Chair in Research on Cardiac Birth Defects, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX.

William C. Sessa, Ph.D.

Alfred Gilman Professor of Pharmacology and Professor of Medicine (Cardiology); Vice Chairman, Pharmacology; Director, Vascular Biology & Therapeutics Program, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT.

Alain Tedgui, Ph.D.

Director, PARCC (Paris-Cardiovascular Research Center), European Editor, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, Directeur de Recherche (Research Professor) Inserm, “classe exceptionnelle”, Paris, France.

Andrew S. Weyrich, Ph.D.

Professor, Internal Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology Pulmonary Adjunct Professor, Pathology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT