Michael M. Koerner, M.D., Ph.D. is the director critical care and associate director acute circulatory support at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center. He is an internationally known physician with expertise in cardiovascular diseases, heart failure, mechanical circulatory support and transplantation. Dr. Koerner graduated from Heinrich-Heine University at Duesseldorf, Germany where he also received his PhD. There he subsequently did a residency in Medicine and Internal Critical Care before fellowships in Medicine, Radiology, Cardiovascular Critical Care and Cardiology at the Heart and Diabetes Center in Oeynhausen, University Hospital of the Ruhr-University of Bochum, Germany. Here as part of the pioneering team he helped to develop a leading critical care, heart failure and transplant program, where he served as the medical director and leading physician. In 1998 he was awarded by the Ruhr-University of Bochum the highest academic award (habilitation) in German medicine, and in 2004 the academic title of an Extraordinary Professor of Medicine. Recruited with the help of Dr. Michael E. DeBakey he moved 1999 to Baylor College of Medicine at Houston, TX, as senior attending in the heart failure, cardiac transplant and mechanical support program. From 2008 until his move to Penn State College of Medicine at Hershey, PA, where he served as a Professor of Medicine in the Heart and Vascular Institute, he re-established successfully and directed the Heart Failure, Cardiac Transplant and Mechanical Assist Device Program at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX before and after Hurrikane IKE and had been appointed the inaugural holder of the Stubbs Family Endowed Distinguished Professorship in Cardiology. Dr.Koerner holds membership in numerous scientific societies and professional organizations, and is reviewer for several journals. His research has provided insights into the management of heart failure and cardiac donor management, particularly as it pertains to the use of mechanical assist devices and cardiac transplantation.