Bremer, Heather

Jennifer Posey, MD, PhD, is the chief of the Division of Clinical Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics and the inaugural chief genomics officer of Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CGO-CUIMC). She received her MD and PhD degrees from Baylor College of Medicine. After completing her residency in medicine at Columbia, she served as faculty and an attending physician for 10 years at Baylor College of Medicine in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics. Her professional interests focus on medical genetics and research genetics. She has an interest in pediatric clinical genetics and genomic medicine. She is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards including the American Society for Human Genetics Early Career Award and the American Society for Clinical Investigation Young Physician-Scientist Award. She is widely recognized for her 2017 New England Journal of Medicine paper, “Resolution of Disease Phenotypes Resulting from Multilocus Genomic Variation,” which opened the door to the next wave of genetic disease explanation and etiology.

Dr. Ratner is Professor of Surgery and Director of Renal and Pancreatic Transplantation at Columbia University. Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia, Dr. Ratner was on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and served as the Chief of Solid Organ Transplantation at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Dr. Ratner was responsible for dramatic growth of the kidney transplant program at CUIMC. He also established the pancreas transplant program, and the Kidney Autotransplant Program. He introduced robotic surgery to our kidney transplant program. Access to organ transplantation has been Dr. Ratner's major academic interest. Dr. Ratner has been a leading innovator in transplantation for over two decades. In 1993, he performed the world's first dual renal transplant. In 1995 (with Dr. Louis Kavoussi) he performed the first laparoscopic donor nephrectomy, and set the stage for its widespread adoption, which resulted in a profound increase in living donor kidney transplantation. Dr. Ratner has made significant contributions in overcoming immunologic incompatibilities that prohibited transplantation. He devised the plasmapheresis/IVIg protocol for alloantibody desensitization in 1998. In 2001, Dr. Ratner orchestrated the second paired-kidney exchange in the U.S. Subsequently, he arranged the first paired kidney exchanges in both Pennsylvania and New York. More recently Dr. Ratner has been a leading proponent of including compatible donor/recipient pairs in kidney exchanges. And, his more contemporary work has looked at the organizational and regulatory barriers to access to care. All of these strategies have increased organ availability and access to transplantation. Additionally, he has made important contributions to improve living donor safety. For his work, Dr. Ratner has received numerous awards and honors. And, he has been invited to speak and operate at various venues around the world. Dr. Ratner has authored or co-authored over 240 peer-reviewed publications, and has been a federally funded investigator. His publications have been cited over 20,000 times. He served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the LiveOnNY (formerly the New York Organ Donor Network), and has served on numerous national committees including the Board of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). He recently completed a term as the President of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, and previously served as that Society's Treasurer.Dr. Ratner originally hails from Brooklyn, NY. He received his undergraduate education at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his M.D. from Hahnemann University. His general surgery training was obtained at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. He completed a Fellowship in Transplantation Surgery and Immunology at Washington University. In 2011 Dr. Ratner completed a Master of Public Health with a focus on health care policy, administration and management.

Dina Podolsky, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She is a board-certified general surgeon who graduated with honors from Rutgers University, where she also received her medical degree, and completed a residency in general surgery at Montefiore Medical Center. Dr. Podolsky then completed fellowship training in complex abdominal wall reconstruction and robotic surgery at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where she worked closely with one of the world’s leading hernia surgeons, Dr. Novitsky. She is a member of several national organizations, including the Americas Hernia Society and the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons. Dr. Podolsky has received numerous awards for her training and teaching, including the Leo M. Davidoff Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Golden Apple Teaching Award. Dr. Podolsky specializes in all aspects of hernia surgery, including inguinal, ventral, and complex abdominal wall reconstruction, employing minimally invasive techniques with laparoscopic and robotic surgery. She has presented research at major professional associations and continues to be active in research, publishing both academic research and textbook chapters. Dr. Podolsky currently sees patients in midtown Manhattan and Washington Heights.