Ana Barac, MD PhD is the director of the MedStar Heart and Vascular Institute's Cardio-Oncology program and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University. She serves as cardiology faculty staff member with MedStar Washington Hospital Center and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. Her clinical and research interests focus on the mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment of cardiac complications of cancer therapies.
Dr. Barac is experienced in basic science research on signaling pathways and in vascular physiology research on endothelial function. She previously was a visiting research fellow at the National Institutes of Health and was awarded a KL2 Scholar Award from the Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science. Her clinical expertise is in advanced cardiac imaging including cardiac MR and echocardiography with focus on LV dysfunction and heart failure.
Dr. Barac is the current and founding Chair of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Cardio-Oncology Council. She also serves as the co-director of the ACC's annual Live Course on Advancing Cardiovascular Care in Oncology patient and was the chair of the first Heart House Roundtable on Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer Treatment in February 2018.
Dr. Barac serves as the cardiology principal investigator (PI) for the SAFE-HEaRt trial, investigator-initiated study that investigates safety of HER2 targeted therapies in patients with HER2 positive breast cancer and reduced cardiac function.
She is a diplomate in Cardiovascular Disease and has advanced training in Cardiac Imaging, Echocardiography and Cardiac MRI.
Dr. Barac earned a medical degree from the University of Zagreb Medical School and a PhD in Biomedicine from the University of Split, both in Croatia. She completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Cardiovascular Diseases at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital/MedStar Washington Hospital Center. She is fluent in English, Italian, Spanish and Croatian.
