Dr. East has been involved in clinical trial research since 1987, working as a principal investigator for over 70 trials. She has also participated as a subinvestigator in more than 20 trials. Such studies have included the use of stem cells in cardiomyopathy and as an adjunct to heart surgery, studies of renal artery nerve ablation as an alternative treatment for hypertension, the use of mipomersen and the PCSK9 inhibitors in familial hypercholesterolemia, the development of novel oral anticoagulants for the prevention of thromboembolic events in atrial fibrillation, the need for repeat ablation following cryoablation for atrial fibrillation, and the gender of authors in a local journal. She has over 48 articles published in peer-reviewed journals and serves as a reviewer for several journals. She is currently a clinical professor at Texas A&M College of Medicine and a cardiology staff attending for Baylor University Medical Center Internal Medicine teaching program. She served on a general medicine IRB and as the cardiologist on an oncology IRB. She currently is a National Leader of the Paradise trial and is the chairman of the Data Safety Monitoring Committee for the NIH trial “Exercise and intensive vascular risk reduction in preventing dementia.”

Dr. Koren directs activities at Jacksonville Center for Clinical Research (JCCR), a multispecialty research organization with eight locations that has conducted more than 1,500 trials involving over 100 investigators. He also practices cardiologist at First Coast Heart and Vascular. Dr. Koren graduated Harvard Medical School with honors and completed additional course work at the Harvard School for Public Health including an M.D. thesis involving computer decision analysis. More recently he was awarded a US patent for developing the software system Ask100Doctors for medical decision making and analysis.

Dr. Koren received postdoctoral training at New York Hospital/ Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center/ Cornell University Medical Center in internal medicine and cardiology where he served as a third-year chief resident, held a faculty position and published several papers and abstracts.

In recent years, he has served as the international lead principal investigator for several large multiple centered trials including ALLIANCE (a pivotal statin study), ROLE (ranolazine safety study), MENDEL (evolocumab) and OSLER (evolocumab). His scientific work, numbering over 100 abstracts and manuscripts, has been published in leading medical journals such as the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, New England Journal of Medicine, Postgraduate Medicine, and The Lancet. Dr. Koren has become interested in “the research of research.” He has presented abstracts on this subject at national meetings and served as a Past President and Board Member for the Academy of Physicians in Clinical Research (APCR) and twice as co-chair of the Ponte Vedra Cardiovascular Symposium. He serves on the Leadership Council of the Society of Clinical Research Sites (SCRS) and is President-elect of the First Coast Metro Board of the American Heart Association.