About Jacob Dal-Bianco, MD
Jacob Dal-Bianco, MD is a cardiologist and expert in valvular heart disease with special interest in the mitral valve. His research is focused on how and why mitral valve leaflets change when diseased with the goal to develop therapies to prevent heart valve disease.
Dr. Dal-Bianco's is a graduate of the University of Vienna Medical School, Austria. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, followed by fellowships in Echocardiography and Cardiovascular Diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA. He joined the staff of the Mass General Hospital in 2013 as a faculty member of the Cardiology Division and MGH Heart Valve Program. Dr. Dal-Bianco's work has been recognized by a Career Development Award from the American Society of Echocardiography, by his selection for Young Investigator Award presentations of the American Heart Association and American Society of Echocardiography and by the Stanford Calderwood Prize for postdoctoral fellow research from the Mass General Hospital.
Dr. Dal-Bianco's main clinical focus is on the evaluation, management and treatment of patients with heart valve disease, with a special interest and expertise in mitral valve disease.
As a member of the MGH Heart Valve Program, Dr. Dal-Bianco works closely with his colleagues in the MGH Cardiac Catheterization laboratory and Cardiac Surgery. He is an expert in advanced cardiac ultrasound techniques to guide the transcatheter, minimally invasive repair or replacement of diseased heart valves (Mitral valve clip / MitraClip; TAVI / TAVR).
Clinical Interests:
- Aortic stenosis
- Bicuspid aortic valve disease
- Catheter-based heart valve repair (MitraClip; TAVI / TAVR)
- Echocardiography, Cardiac ultrasound
- MitraClip
- Mitral regurgitation
- Mitral valve
- Mitral valve prolapse
- Rheumatic heart disease
- Transcatheter valve replacement and repair
- Valvular heart disease
Treats:
- Adult
Languages:
- German
Locations
Mass General Heart Center
55 Fruit St.
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: 866-644-8910
Medical Education
- MD, University of Vienna School of Medicine
- Residency, Mayo Clinic
- Fellowship, Cedars Sinai Medical Center
- Fellowship, Massachusetts General Hospital
American Board Certifications
- Cardiovascular Disease, American Board of Internal Medicine
- Internal Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine
Accepted Insurance Plans
- Aetna
- Beech Street
- Blue Cross Blue Shield
- Blue Cross Blue Shield Medicare
- Cigna
- Commonwealth Care Alliance
- Coventry
- Fallon Health
- Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
- Humana
- Maine Community Health Options
- Mass General Brigham Health Plan
- MassHealth
- Medicaid CT
- Medicaid ME
- Medicaid NH
- Medicaid NY
- Medicaid RI
- Medicaid VT
- Medicare
- Medicare ACO
- Multiplan
- Railroad Medicare
- Senior Whole Health
- TriCare
- Tufts Health Plan
- United Health Care
- Wellpoint
- WellSense
- WellSense NH
Note: This provider may accept more insurance plans than shown; please call the practice to find out if your plan is accepted.
Research
Dr. Dal-Bianco's research aims to explore and to understand the biological mechanisms of why heart valves become diseased and dysfunctional. His aim is to develop medical therapies that prevent the development or stop the progression of heart valve disease to maintain healthy, normally functioning heart valves.
Dr. Dal-Bianco explores the adaptive mechanisms of the mitral valve following a heart attack and his research suggests that mitral valve leaflets actively grow and adapt, but also become scarred (=fibrosed), stiff and thick. This novel observation contradicts the notion of mitral valve leaflets being merely passive tissue flaps. Understanding the mechanisms of mitral valve adaptation could lead to new therapeutic opportunities with the goal to prevent leaflet fibrosis to maintain leaflet flexibility and thus preserve a good leaflet seal (coaptation). Developing such therapies will reduce the amount of mitral regurgitation and improve heart failure symptoms. This multidisciplinary research project is in collaboration with Dr. Robert Levine, Dr. Elena Aikawa and Dr. Joyce Bischoff.
A new research direction will now investigate prevention of rheumatic heart valve disease progression.