Before joining Virta, Dr. Hallberg founded Indiana University Arnett's Medically Supervised Weight Loss Program where she still serves as Medical Director. Her clinic served as the host for Virta's clinical trial.

Dr. Hallberg is an expert in diabetes care and is board certified in Internal Medicine, Obesity Medicine, and Clinical Lipidology.  Dr. Hallberg is also the Chair of the Scientific Advisor Board and the Board of Directors of The Nutrition Coalition, a nonprofit organization that aims to educate the public and policymakers about the need to strengthen national nutrition policy so that it is founded upon a comprehensive body of conclusive science, and where that science is absent, to encourage research.

A low-carb enthusiast, Dr. Hallberg practices what she preaches by living a ketogenic lifestyle.  Her TEDx Talk, "Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Starts with Ignoring the Guidelines," has been viewed more than 3 million times.

Dr. Patrick McBride gave a lecture on the importance of self-care called Taking Care of Your Heart: An Update in Heart Disease Prevention.

About Dr. Patrick McBride

Dr. McBride is a professor in the Department of Medicine's section of cardiovascular medicine and the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, where he also served as Associate Dean for Students.  Dr. McBride also co-directs the UW Hospital and Clinics' Preventive Cardiology program, with more than 30 professional staff, an inpatient and outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program, a preventive cardiology/cholesterol clinic and other clinical initiatives for people at risk for cardiovascular disease.

Dr. McBride has served on several national guideline panels including the National Cholesterol Education Program's (NCEP) Children and Adolescent Treatment Panel, the AAMC Obesity Panel, the AHRQ Cardiac Rehabilitation Expert Panel, and the NIH-NCEP's Adult Treatment Panel III and IV. 

With his primary research focus in preventive cardiology, cholesterol treatment and the quality of cardiovascular disease prevention in practice, Dr. McBride has authored or co-authored more than 150 publications.  Dr. McBride is a leader in developing and implementing statewide teaching programs for health care professionals on heart disease prevention, cholesterol, and quality.

Ian Crozier, M.D., gave a compelling presentation about his experiences as both a physician for ebola patients and an ebola survior himself. 

About Dr. Ian Crozier

Dr. Ian Crozier is a Vanderbilt-trained infectious diseases specialist originally from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Over the past six years, primarily at the Infectious Diseases Institute (Kampala, Uganda), his work has focused on developing clinical reasoning skills in African clinicians providing complex care at African bedsides.

In August 2014, he was deployed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to the Kenema Government Hospital Ebola Treatment Unit in eastern Sierra Leone, a ground-zero setting for the Sierra Leone outbreak. After becoming infected, he was evacuated to Emory University Hospital, becoming critically ill, but emerging after a six-week hospitalization. Two months after clearing the virus from his blood he developed sight-threatening ocular inflammation with high amounts of viable Ebola virus detected in the eye, this in addition to a long list of other post-Ebola virus disease sequelae. He has been called one of the sickest Ebola survivors ever, and provides a unique perspective from a dual citizenship as Ebola doctor and Ebola survivor.

Currently, he serves a three-country technical role at WHO, focused on characterizing and understanding the sequelae of Ebola virus disease in West African survivors, targeting their clinical care needs, the management of residual risk and the scientific questions newly emerging at survivors’ bedsides.

Stephen Dreskin, M.D., Ph.D., was the inaugural speaker for the Dreskin Distinguished Lectureship at the USC School of Medicine Greenville.

Dr. Dreskin’s lecture addressed food allergies, their epidemiology and immune system pathophysiology as well as current approaches to diagnosis and management.

About Stephen Dreskin, M.D., Ph.D

Stephen C. Dreskin, M.D., Ph.D. is a professor of Medicine and Immunology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine-Denver and medical director of the University of Colorado Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology Practice at the University of Colorado School of Medicine-Denver.

In addition, he is active in many national organizations. Currently, he is the chair of the Practice, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics (PDT) Committee of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) and chair of the Plenary Workgroup for the 2016 AAAAI annual meeting. He also serves on the board of directors of the American Board of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Dr. Dreskin grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, earned a B.A. degree from the University of Pennsylvania and received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Emory University. This was followed by a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of California Davis, Sacramento Medical Center and a fellowship in Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health.

His primary research interest is the study of functional IgE-allergen interactions as they pertain to food allergies. In work funded by the National Institutes of Health and other sources, his laboratory has established that 2 small allergens, Ara h 2 and Ara h 6 are the major peanut allergens. Current efforts are directed at how these proteins cross-link IgE on mast cells to initiate the allergic response.

Dr. Dreskin’s primary clinical interest is the treatment of chronic urticaria and angioedema. He has written numerous clinical reviews on this topic and is the current author of the chapter on Chronic Urticaria and Angioedema for Goldman’s Cecil Medicine Textbook (24th ed).