Daniel Berger (physician)

Daniel Berger (born November 25, 1957) is a leading HIV specialist in the United States. A Clinical Associate Professor at the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Berger is also founder and medical director of Northstar Medical Center, Chicago’s largest private HIV/AIDS research and treatment center.

Berger has received numerous awards for his work as a researcher and teacher, including the Charles E. Clifton Leadership Award "For excellence and leadership to the Chicago HIV community" (2006), the Distinguished Researcher in HIV Medicine Award from Serono Laboratories (2000) and the American College of Physicians’ Preceptor Award for outstanding teaching in internal medicine (1996).

Biography

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Daniel Berger is the son of Hungarian immigrants Kathy and Kalman Berger and brother to Kenneth Ira Berger. Kathy Berger (1926-2016) was a survivor of Nazi Concentration camp Auschwitz, liberated from Bergen-Belsen at the end of WW II. Her biography and testimony has been recorded and documented in the Shoah Foundation archives (http://vhaonline.usc.edu/viewingPage.aspx?testimonyID=10290&returnIndex=0USC). Kalman Berger (1921 - 1984) was a survivor of Nazi slave labor in Hungary, Poland, Germany, and Russia. Berger's brother Kenneth Ira Berger is an Associate Professor and medical director at the Tisch Pulmonary Function Lab at NYU. Has conducted extensive research and has more than 50 publications in the areas of pulmonary physiology, cardiovascular and pulmonary outcomes of World Trade Center exposure, mucopolysaccharidosis, Pompe's Disease and pulmonary manifestations of obesity (http://www.med.nyu.edu/biosketch/bergek01).

Berger received his B.S. from Touro College in New York City and his M.D. from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (The Chicago Medical School North Chicago). He interned at Lutheran General Hospital of Park Ridge, Illinois and completed his residency at Saint Joseph Hospital of Chicago, Illinois.

HIV research

At Northstar Medical Center, where he serves as principal investigator, Berger has conducted nearly 200 HIV-related clinical trials. Well known in the antiretroviral drug research and development community, Berger has published dozens of articles in peer-reviewed medical journals and authored abstracts in many international conferences on HIV-related treatment.

During the first years of HIV treatment development, Berger presented his work on several watershed studies on the development of the drug cocktail. Highlights include a presentation at the 1992 International AIDS Conference describing the first use of combination therapy with zidovudine and didanosine for patients who were consistently p24 anti-genemic despite zidovudine monotherapy. Also, Berger conducted the first investigations of interleukin II in advanced HIV disease patients, presented at the 1998 International Conference on AIDS.

During the years 2005-2010, antiretroviral therapy for HIV disease experienced a revolution in therapeutics. Berger was heavily involved as principal investigator of these agents and co-authored several resultant iconic publications of trials including the Power 2, Titan, Duet and Startmrk studies and the first studies of elvitegravir. Berger often lectures to physicians around the US on topics relating to incorporating of newer antiretroviral therapies into treatment. Additionally, Berger frequently publishes editorial articles in the lay press.

From 2012 to the present, Berger has been conducting studies with newer antiretroviral agents and participating in clinical trials that have led to a fine-tuning of treatment of HIV infection and contributed to the development of Gilead Sciences' Stribild, Complera, TAF (Tenofovir Alfonamide), Genvoya, Odefsey and GS 9883, as well as Merck's non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor MK-1439 (Doravirine). He is also active in serving as a lead investigator in long-term studies of Egrifta (Theratechnologies Inc).

Art Patronage

In addition to his medical and research practices, Berger is an avid collector of Outsider Art and contemporary art, with a specialization in works by African-American, Chicago-based and queer artists. In 2010, he opened Iceberg Projects, a not-for-profit art gallery, in a refurbished carriage house behind his home in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. A Chicago Reader profile of Berger discussing his collection and work with Iceberg Projects is available at http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/10/10/daniel-berger-quietly-redefining-what-it-means-to-support-the-arts. Since 2012, he has been a member of the Board of Governors for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the Leslie-Lohman Museum, New York (2016).

In 2015, Berger acquired the archives of Art + Positive, an affinity group of ACT-UP NY. Later that year, Berger and John Neff (an artist, curator, and art educator who is a founding board member of Iceberg Projects) curated the first exhibition of the archives of Art+ Positive, Militant Eroticism, at Iceberg Projects

In 2014, Dr. Berger founded the Daniel Berger Barbara DeGenevieve Scholarship in Photography, a yearly scholarship to an individual enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's MFA program honoring the late Barbara DeGenevieve. A year later, Berger was listed by Newcity’s The Art 50 as one of the top 50 most influential individuals in Chicago's Art Community.

Selected references

HIV: The First Year Book, An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed, by Bret Grodeck, Forward by Daniel S. Berger MD, with substantial contributions throughout the book by Berger (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-first-year-hiv-brett-grodeck/1005502125)

Peter J Ruane, Edwin DeJesus, Daniel Berger, Martin Markowitz, U Fritz Bredeek, Christian Callebaut, Lijie Zhong, Srini Ramanathan, Martin S Rhee, Marshall W Fordyce, Kitty Yale. Antiviral Activity, Safety, and Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics of Tenofovir Alafenamide as 10-Day Monotherapy in HIV-1-Positive Adults. J. Acquir. Immune Defic. Syndr. 2013; 63(4):449-455.

Raltegravir Versus Efavirenz Regimens in Treatment-Naïve HIV-1-Infected Patients: 96-Week Efficacy, Durability, Subgroup, Safety, and Metabolic Analysis. Jeffrey L. Lennox, Edwin DeJesus, Daniel S. Berger, Adriano Lazzarin, Richard B. Pollard, Jose Valdez Ramalho Madruga, Jing Zhao, Hong Wan, Christopher L Gilbert, Hedy Teppler, Anthony J. Rodgers, Richard J.O. Barnard, Michael D. Miller, Mark J. DiNubile, Bach-Yen Nguyen, Randi Leavitt, Peter Sklar for the STARTMRK Investigators. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2010. doi:10.1097/QAI.0b013e3181da1287

Activity of Elvitegravir, a Once-Daily Integrase Inhibitor, against Resistant HIV Type 1: Results of a Phase 2, Randomized, Controlled, Dose-Ranging Clinical Trial. Andrew R. Zolopa, Daniel S. Berger, Harry Lampiris, Lijie Zhong, Steven L. Chuck, Jeffrey V. Enejosa, Brian P. Kearney, and Andrew Cheng. JID 2010;201:814-22.

Metabolic Effects of a Growth Hormone-Releasing Factor in Patients with HIV. Julian Falutz, Soraya Allas, Koenraad Blot, Diane Potvin, Donald Kotler, Michael Somero, Daniel Berger, Stephen Brown, Gary Richmond, Jeffrey Fessel, Ralph Turner and Steven Grinspoon. New Engl J Med 2007;357:2359-70.

A Randomized, Controlled Phase III Trial Compariing 48-week Efficacy and Safety of Darunavir/Ritonavir (DRV/r) with Lopinavir/Ritonavir (LPV/r) in treatment experienced patients: TITAN. JoseValdez-Madruga, Daniel Berger, Marilyn McMurchie, Fredy Suter, Denes Banhegyi, Dorece Norris, Eric Lefebvre, Tony Vangeneugden, Marie-Pierre de Bethune, Frank Tomaka, Martine De Pauw, Sabrina Spinosa-Guzman. The Lancet 2007; 370:49-58

Week 24 Efficacy and Safety of TMC114/ritonavir in treatment-experienced HIV Patients: R Haubrich, D. Berger, P Chilade, A Colson, M Conant, J Gallant, R Gulick, J Nadler, G Pierone, M Saag, P Shalit, B van Baelen M de Bethune, A Koest er, W Parys, V Sekar, E Lefebvre on behalf of Power 2 study group AIDS 2007, 21:F11-F18.

External links

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