Frederick Henry Leonhardt Professor
Rockefeller University
New York, N.Y.

Jan L. Breslow heads the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism at The Rockefeller University, where he investigates genetic and environmental factors involved in atherosclerosis susceptibility.

Over the past 25 years, Dr. Breslow has identified many of the genes that control the transport of cholesterol and other fats through the bloodstream and has shown that some forms of these genes predispose individuals to atherosclerosis, while others protect against the disease. His creation of the apolipoprotein E knockout mouse provided the first good small animal model of atherosclerosis and has opened up many new experimental approaches for the study of this disease.

In recent years, Dr. Breslow has applied genomic techniques to mouse models to identify new sets of genes that act in the immune system and in the blood vessel wall to control atherosclerosis susceptibility, as well as genes that influence a person’s response to high cholesterol diets. 

Dr. Breslow received A.B. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.  He completed an internship and residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, and was then a staff associate at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, before returning to Harvard and Children’s Hospital in 1973. 

He joined The Rockefeller University in 1984, where he holds the Frederick Henry Leonhardt Professorship.  A member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine, Dr. Breslow is a former president of the American Heart Association. 

His numerous honors include the American Academy of Pediatrics E. Mead Johnson Award, the Heinrich Wieland Prize in Lipid Research, the American Heart Association Basic Research Prize, the Pasarow Foundation Cardiovascular Research Award, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Cardiovascular Research, and the New York City Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology.

Frederick Henry Leonhardt Professor
Rockefeller University
New York, N.Y.

Jan L. Breslow heads the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism at The Rockefeller University, where he investigates genetic and environmental factors involved in atherosclerosis susceptibility.

Over the past 25 years, Dr. Breslow has identified many of the genes that control the transport of cholesterol and other fats through the bloodstream and has shown that some forms of these genes predispose individuals to atherosclerosis, while others protect against the disease. His creation of the apolipoprotein E knockout mouse provided the first good small animal model of atherosclerosis and has opened up many new experimental approaches for the study of this disease.

In recent years, Dr. Breslow has applied genomic techniques to mouse models to identify new sets of genes that act in the immune system and in the blood vessel wall to control atherosclerosis susceptibility, as well as genes that influence a person’s response to high cholesterol diets. 

Dr. Breslow received A.B. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.  He completed an internship and residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, and was then a staff associate at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, before returning to Harvard and Children’s Hospital in 1973. 

He joined The Rockefeller University in 1984, where he holds the Frederick Henry Leonhardt Professorship.  A member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine, Dr. Breslow is a former president of the American Heart Association. 

His numerous honors include the American Academy of Pediatrics E. Mead Johnson Award, the Heinrich Wieland Prize in Lipid Research, the American Heart Association Basic Research Prize, the Pasarow Foundation Cardiovascular Research Award, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Cardiovascular Research, and the New York City Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology.

Professor 
Medical College of Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Wis.
Dr. Gross received his Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Utah in 1971. Dr. Gross joined the faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1973 and was promoted to professor in 1980. He has been a continuously NIH-funded investigator for the past 33 years.

His major area of research concerns mechanisms by which endogenous substances released by the heart can protect the myocardium during ischemia and/or reperfusion, a phenomenon termed ischemic preconditioning (IPC). In this regard, Dr. Gross's laboratory was the first to demonstrate that the ATP-sensitive potassium channel was a critical trigger and effector of IPC. This breakthrough has been repeated by a number of investigators and remains one of the key components of this remarkable cardioprotective phenomenon.

Dr. Gross's was also the first laboratory to identify a role for endogenous opioids in triggering and mediating the cardioprotective effects of acute or delayed IPC and that exogenous opioids such as morphine also possessed potent cardioprotective properties  mediated via KATP channel opening.

Most recently, he was awarded an NIH MERIT Award in which he uncovered a new endogenous cardioprotective pathway that appears to be mediated by CYP 450 isoforms in the heart.

Over the past 33 years Dr. Gross's work has resulted in approximately 400 full-length peer reviewed journal articles, reviews and book chapters. Dr Gross has been an invited speaker at more than 80 universities and pharmaceutical companies. He has mentored 15 Ph.D. students and 10 postdoctoral fellows, 95 percent of whom were funded by fellowships from the American Heart Association.

Dr. Gross is a reviewer for all the leading cardiovascular journals including Circulation Research, Cardiovascular Research and Circulation. He also serves on the editorial board of eight journals and has been an associate editor of the American Journal of Physiology for the past eight years.

Dr. Gross is a Fellow of the American Heart Association, a founding Fellow of the International Society of Heart Research and is a member of the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the American Physiological Society.

Professor of Medicine and Public Health
Boston University School of Medicine
Framingham, Mass.

Dr. Kannel, a summa cum laude graduate of the Medical College of Georgia (1949), trained in internal medicine in the U.S. Public Health Service in New York and was certified in 1958

He became a fellow of the American College of Cardiology in 1969, the American Heart Association (1966), American College of Epidemiology (1981), and American College of Preventive Medicine (1984).

He has been active in cardiovascular epidemiology for more than 50 years, associated with the Framingham Study since its inception in 1950. In 1996 he became its director, succeeding Dr. Thomas R. Dawber, the original architect of the world famous study.

He also received a master's degree in public health and epidemiology cum laude from Harvard in 1959.

He was associated with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for over 35 years and has a long and abiding interest in preventive cardiology, for which he received numerous awards including the Canadian Gairdner Award (1976), Bruce Memorial Award of the ACP (1982), Dana Award(1986), Dutch Einthoven Award (1973), AHA Research Achievement Award (1994), and New York Academy of Medicine Award (2006).

Dr. Kannel has also received honorary medical degrees from Gothenberg Sweden, University of Rio De Janiero, and Medical College of Ohio (Doctor of Science).

He was past chairman of the AHA Council of Epidemiology and chief of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology of Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Kannel is professor of medicine and public health at Boston University School of Medicine and a senior investigator at the Framingham Study.

Dwight and Vera Dunlevie
Professor of Pediatric Cardiology
Director of Cardiopulmonary Research Program at Wall Center
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford, Calif.

A graduate of McGill University Medical School in 1971, Dr. Rabinovitch completed internship and residency at the University of Colorado Medical Center in 1973, worked for the Ministry of Health in Israel from 1973-74 and completed her fellowship in pediatric cardiology at Harvard Medical School, Children's Hospital Medical Center in 1977. She is board certified in pediatric cardiology in the United States and Canada.

Dr. Rabinovitch was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and relocated in 1982, as associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto.  She was subsequently appointed professor of pediatrics in laboratory medicine and pathobiology, and of medicine at the University of Toronto, and director of cardiovascular research at the Research Institute, Hospital for Sick Children, from 1988 until her recruitment to Stanford in 2002.

An international leader in the fields of pulmonary vascular development and vascular biology, Dr. Rabinovitch authored more than 130 peer-reviewed articles and 90 reviews. She was recognized with numerous prestigious awards, most recently, the AHA 2005 Dickinson Richards Lecture, the AHA 2004 Basic Science Research Prize, and the 2004 Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Institute for Circulatory and Respiratory Health Lectureship and Prize.

Previous awards include:

• McGill University Cushing Memorial Award in Pediatrics (1971)
• Canadian Cardiovascular Society Research Achievement Award (1994)
• American Physiological Society Julius Comroe Lectureship (1996)
• Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada Award of Merit (1999)
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research Distinguished Scientist Award (2000)
• AHA Paul Dudley White Lectureship (2002)
• 2003 Gill Heart Institute (University of Kentucky) Award for Outstanding Contributions to Cardiovascular Research

Chairman, Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics
Professor of Physiology and Biophysics,
Biochemistry and Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston, Mass.

Dr. Donald M. Small was born in Newton, Mass. in 1931 and moved to California as a young boy.  He attended Occidental College, graduating in 1954, and went on to UCLA Medical School, graduating in 1960.  He attended Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar and obtained a masters in physiology.

After a residency in internal medicine in Boston, he spent two and a half years studying biophysics of lipids and proteins at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France.  There, he began his studies on the physical chemistry of cholesterol and its interaction with membrane lipids and bile salts.

These studies led to a hypothesis for the formation of bile and predicted the abnormalities leading to biliary cholesterol supersaturation and gallstone formation.  Dr. Small and his students studied bile formation and composition in animals and humans and determined that cholesterol supersaturation was a result of diminished bile salt secretion and/or increased cholesterol secretion leading to abnormal bile, which when nucleated formed cholesterol crystals, then grew into gallstones.

Turning to liver secretion in the plasma, he began the study of lipoproteins and atherosclerosis model systems of lipid in lipoproteins and atherosclerotic deposits to generate theories of lipoprotein structure and cholesterol deposition in the process of atherogenesis.  Later with colleagues, he showed the changes in the physical behavior of lipid deposits as atherosclerosis regressed.  These studies formed the basis for the deposition of lipids in atherosclerotic plaques and how they evolve during progression and regression.

Dr. Small founded the Biophysics Department at Boston University School of Medicine in 1988 and later chaired the Physiology and Biophysics Department until July 2006.

He is the author of more than 300 scientific articles and one major book, “The Physical Chemistry of Lipids.”

He received The American Gastroenterology Association’s Beaumont Prize and was the George Lyman Duff Memorial Lecture of the American Heart Association in 1986.

Dr. Small has three sons and four grandchildren and continues to be active in the lab.  He is an avid skier and outdoorsman.

Professor of Public Health (Epidemiology & Biostatistics)
Research Professor of Medicine (Preventive Medicine & Epidemiology)
Professor of Public Health (Epidemiology & Biostatistics)
BU School of Public Health
Principal Investigator, The Framingham Study
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston, Mass.

Dr. Wolf received his medical degree from the State University of New York, at Syracuse, cum laude in 1960 and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha.

He trained in medicine at Boston City Hospital and at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, and in neurology and neuropathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He also trained in epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

He is professor of neurology and research professor of medicine (epidemiology and preventive medicine) at Boston University School of Medicine, and professor of  public health.

He has been a Framingham Study investigator since 1967 and has been PI of the Framingham Heart Study Contract from NHLBI to Boston University since 1989.

His research interest has been in the epidemiology of stroke, dementia and cognitive decline.

He was chief of the Stroke Section at Boston University from 1969 to 2000 and participated in many clinical and therapeutic trials of stroke including the NINDS Stroke Data Bank.

He is a member of the Stroke and Epidemiology & Disease Prevention councils of the AHA, having served on the Executive Committees of both, and was a member of the Science Affairs Council of the AHA.

Dr. Wolf  is PI of an R01 Precursors of Stroke Incidence and Prognosis continuously funded by NINDS since 1981, and of two R01’s from the NIA: Epidemiology of Dementia since 1989, and MRI, Genetic & Cognitive Precursors of AD & Dementia funded since 1999.

He received the Jacob A. Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the NINDS, the Award for Excellence in Clinical Stroke of the AHA Stroke Council and delivered the Connor Memorial Lecture. He also received the Mihara Award of the International Stroke Society (1996) and ASA New England Chapter’s C. Miller Fisher Award (2000).

He is a member of numerous societies, including the American Neurological Association, American Epidemiologic Society and the American Academy of Neurology.

Distinguished Professor of Medicine
Krannert Institute of Cardiology
Indianapolis, Ind.

Dr. Harvey Feigenbaum is widely recognized as one of the pioneers in echocardiography and has been a leading scientist in this field for decades. He is a visionary, one of the first to understand the potential of ultrasound in cardiovascular medicine, and was one of the first to appreciate the role that echocardiography could play in expanding our knowledge of the pathophyisiology of ischemic heart disease.

Dr. Feigenbaum was born and raised in East Chicago, Ind. He graduated with honors from Indiana University undergraduate and medical schools, and interned at Philadelphia General Hospital. He returned to IU for residency and fellowship. In 1962 became an instructor at IU Medical School and rose to distinguished professor in 1980. Investigational interests were initially in electrophysiology and then cardiac catheterization and hemodynamics. In 1963 he saw an advertisement claiming that ultrasound could measure cardiac volume. The ad was a sham, but diagnostic ultrasound was intriguing. Although there was great skepticism toward new cardiac tests following failures such as ballistocardiography and the fact that cardiac ultrasound had been around for about 10 years without much clinical enthusiasm, he used it to detect pericardial effusion. This application became the world’s first practical, popular use of echocardiography. His laboratory subsequently developed many more applications. Other echocardiography contributions included training many early pioneers and the first cardiac sonographers, organizing the first and numerous other courses, writing the first textbook with multiple editions and translations, founding the American Society of Echocardiography and later serving as its journal’s first editor.

Dr. Feigenbaum truly shaped the face of echocardiography, as we now know it, and is regarded internationally as the "Father of Echocardiography."

Distinguished Professor of Medicine
Krannert Institute of Cardiology
Indianapolis, Ind.

Dr. Harvey Feigenbaum is widely recognized as one of the pioneers in echocardiography and has been a leading scientist in this field for decades. He is a visionary, one of the first to understand the potential of ultrasound in cardiovascular medicine, and was one of the first to appreciate the role that echocardiography could play in expanding our knowledge of the pathophyisiology of ischemic heart disease.

Dr. Feigenbaum was born and raised in East Chicago, Ind. He graduated with honors from Indiana University undergraduate and medical schools, and interned at Philadelphia General Hospital. He returned to IU for residency and fellowship. In 1962 became an instructor at IU Medical School and rose to distinguished professor in 1980. Investigational interests were initially in electrophysiology and then cardiac catheterization and hemodynamics. In 1963 he saw an advertisement claiming that ultrasound could measure cardiac volume. The ad was a sham, but diagnostic ultrasound was intriguing. Although there was great skepticism toward new cardiac tests following failures such as ballistocardiography and the fact that cardiac ultrasound had been around for about 10 years without much clinical enthusiasm, he used it to detect pericardial effusion. This application became the world’s first practical, popular use of echocardiography. His laboratory subsequently developed many more applications. Other echocardiography contributions included training many early pioneers and the first cardiac sonographers, organizing the first and numerous other courses, writing the first textbook with multiple editions and translations, founding the American Society of Echocardiography and later serving as its journal’s first editor.

Dr. Feigenbaum truly shaped the face of echocardiography, as we now know it, and is regarded internationally as the "Father of Echocardiography."

Otho S.A. Sprague Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
University of Chicago
Chicago, Ill.

Harry Fozzard is a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist who has focused on mechanisms of sudden cardiac death, the sodium, calcium, and potassium channels underlying the cardiac action potential, and excitation-contraction coupling.  His research has helped lay the foundations for modern clinical electrophysiology. After graduating from Washington University Medical School in 1956, he trained in internal medicine and cardiology at Yale and at Barnes Hospital. He learned cellular cardiac electrophysiology and developed a voltage clamp for cardiac cells in Silvio Weidmann’s lab in Bern, Switzerland. Appalled by the death rate from acute myocardial infarction, he established the first coronary care unit at Barnes Hospital in 1965 and with engineering colleagues developed a digital computer system for real-time arrhythmia monitoring. In 1966 he moved to the University of Chicago, where he was responsible for the computer division of its Myocardial Infarction Research Unit. Using the voltage clamp, he and colleagues demonstrated the complex dependence of cardiac contraction on membrane depolarization and calcium current. His lab perfected ion-selective microelectrodes for monitoring intact cells, characterizing the role of Na/Ca exchange and the calcium channel in regulating intracellular calcium. More recently, he has led the development of structure-function of the cloned cardiac sodium channel, exploiting molecular modeling and mutation to guide and understand function. His laboratory is in its 44th year of NIH support. During this long career he has mentored in his lab 60 Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. candidates, postdoctoral fellows and scientists on sabbatical, and has taught on the wards and in medical, graduate and college courses.

He led Chicago’s Cardiology program with Leon Resnekov for 10 years before becoming chairman of the University’s Pharmacological & Physiological Sciences Department. He served the NIH as chairman of the Physiology study section and as author of the proposal for the BHAT trial. He was the American Heart Association’s 1981-83 vice-president for research, and from 1986-91 editor-in-chief of Circulation Research.
Dr. Fozzard is a world leader in cardiac electrophysiology whose research is distinguished by its innovativeness, rigor, sophistication and broad impact.

Director, Center for Human Nutrition and Chair, Dept of Clinical Nutrition
University Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, Texas

Dr. Scott M. Grundy is the director of the Center for Human Nutrition and chairman of the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.  He's also chief of the metabolic unit, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, in Dallas, Texas. He is also the Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. Previously, he was on the faculty at the University of California, San Diego, the National Institutes of Health Phoenix Clinical Research Unit, the Rockefeller University, New York City, and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Dr. Grundy received his M.D. degree from Baylor College of Medicine and his Ph.D. from the Rockefeller University.

Dr. Grundy has been a member of, or chaired, several American Heart Association committees, including the Arteriosclerosis Council, Nutrition Committee, Task Force on Risk Reduction, and Task Force on Cholesterol. He chairs the Adult Treatment Panel of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Association of Physicians, and the National Academies of Sciences (Institute of Medicine).

Dr. Grundy received The Award of Merit from the American Heart Association in 1983. He gave the Lydia J. Roberts Memorial Lecture in Chicago in 1988 and the George Lyman Duff Lecture at the 1990 AHA meeting in Dallas. In 1990, he was awarded an honorary degree in medicine from the University of Helsinki, Finland. In 1994, he received the Roger J. Williams Award in preventive nutrition. He was made a member of the National Academies Institute of Medicine in 1996, and in 1997 and 1998 he received the Bristol Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Nutrition Research and the American Society for Clinical Nutrition's E.V. McCollum award, respectively.

Dr. Grundy's major research areas are in nutrition and cholesterol and lipoprotein metabolism. He has published over 300 original papers, and numerous solicited articles and chapters. Notable research achievements include the development of methods for measuring cholesterol balance and biliary lipid secretion in humans, identifying the metabolic causes of cholesterol gallstones, defining effects of saturated and unsaturated fats, especially monounsaturated fatty acids, on cholesterol and lipoprotein metabolism, uncovering genetic defects underlying elevated blood cholesterol and other lipid disorders, identifying metabolic defects of elevated blood cholesterol, high triglycerides, and low HDL (the good cholesterol), hypoalphalipoproteinemia, and defining mechanisms of action of several lipid-lowering drugs, notably fibrates and HMG CoA reductase inhibitors (statins).

Dr. Grundy is an internationally recognized leader in human lipid lipoprotein metabolism, dedicated to providing the kind of scientifically well-founded guidance and guidelines to the PHS, professional organizations, practicing generalists, and the public as a whole. His research is remarkable for its extraordinary breadth, for its elegance, and most importantly, for the tremendous impact it has had on our understanding of clinically important factors affecting lipoprotein metabolism.

Sterling Professor of Genetics
Chair, Department. of Genetics
Yale University School of Medicine
New Haven, Conn.

Dr. Richard P. Lifton is Sterling Professor and chair of the Department of Genetics at Yale.  He's also professor of internal medicine. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth, M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford, and completed clinical training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Lifton’s laboratory has coupled the clinical investigation of families from around the world with human genetics to identify genes and biochemical pathways that underlie common diseases, with a focus on hypertension. His laboratory has identified mutations in eight genes that markedly elevate blood pressure and another 8 that lower blood pressure. The effects of these mutations converge on a single final common pathway -- renal salt handling -- and unequivocally demonstrate the impact of altered renal salt reabsorption on blood pressure. These studies provide fundamental understanding of the pathogenesis of hypertension, identify novel therapeutic targets, and have implications for the treatment of this common disease.

Dr. Lifton has received multiple awards for his pioneering work on the genetic basis of hypertension, including the Novartis Award, the highest award of the AHA Council for High Blood Pressure Research; the Pasarow Foundation Award for Medical Research; the Richard Bright Award of the American Society of Hypertension; the Basic Research Award of the AHA; and the Roy O. Greep Award of the Endocrine Society.
Dr. Lifton is an internationally renowned clinical-scientist who has made major discoveries on monogenic causes of hypertension and hypotension. His research has been systematic, novel and exceedingly useful to an understanding of the causes of primary hypertension.

Chief, Cardiovascular and Bioprosthetic Research and Tenured Professor
UTHSC San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas

Dr. Palmaz is chief of cardiovascular and bioprosthetic research and tenured professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. He received his M.D.degree in 1971 at the National University of La Plata, Argentina, and completed his radiology specialty training at the University of California, Davis in 1980.

Dr. Palmaz began his professional career in 1974 at San Martin University Hospital in Argentina, and was chief of special procedures at Martinez Veterans Administration hospital in 1981. In 1983, Dr. Palmaz joined the University of Texas Health Sciences Department of Radiology as chief of angiography and special procedures until 1999.

Dr. Palmaz has 20 issued patents and is the author of 29 books or book chapters and has authored 101 peer-reviewed publications. He is a member of the editorial board for Circulation and is a scientific reviewer for several other journals, including the Journal of Vascular Surgery and the Journal of Vascular, Interventional Radiology and the Journal of Cardiovascular Radiology. For two years in a row, his patent on the balloon-expandable stent was recognized as one of the "Ten patents that changed the world" published in IP International Magazine in August 2002. His early stent research artifacts are now part of the medical collection of the Smithsonian Institutions.

In January 2003 Palmaz received the Presidential Distinguished Scholar Award from the University of Texas San Antonio. He received the title of "Master of Interventional Cardiology" from the Argentina College of Cardiology, And "Extraordinary Professor" from the National University of La Plata, Argentina. He also received honorary titles or awards from the International Society of Endovascular Surgery, the Society of Interventional Radiology, the German Roentgen Society, The Rotterdam Thoraxcenter in Holland, the Washington Cardiovascular Research Foundation, the Society of Cardiac Angiography, the Texas Heart Institute, the Texas Bar Association, the San Antonio chapter of the AHA, the Miami Cardiac and Vascular Institute, the Cardiovascular Institute of the South, and the Surfaces in Biomaterials Foundation .

Chair, Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine
Head, Cardiovascular Research Institute
UMDNJ
Newark, N.J.

Dr. Vatner is professor and chair of the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine and director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in the New Jersey Medical School. After Dr. Vatner received his M.D. and clinical and research training, he was appointed assistant professor at the University of California at San Diego in 1969. In 1972 he moved to Harvard Medical School and rose to professor of medicine. Dr. Vatner’s scientific findings are documented in more than 400 peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Since 1972, he has trained more than 75 postdoctoral research fellows, including more than 20 who now hold full professorships. He was editor-in-chief of the American Heart Association journal Circulation Research from 1991-99. He chaired the AHA Council on Circulation from 1990-92 and was instrumental in effecting its merger with the Council on Basic Science. Most notably, he and the late Dr. Mel Marcus, who followed Dr. Vatner as program committee chair for the former Council on Circulation, were instrumental in developing a new young scientist award, known as the Melvin L. Marcus Young Investigator Award in Cardiovascular Science. Later, Dr. Vatner developed and acquired funding for an intermediate-level scientist award, the Basic Research Council on Circulation Cardiovascular Research Prize.

Dr. Vatner has numerous honors and awards, including the Scientific Councils’ Distinguished Achievement Award of the Association in 1998, the George E. Brown Lecturer in 1986, the 1995 Wiggers Award of the American Physiology Society, the National Institute of Health Merit Award, and the American Heart Association Research Achievement Award.

Dr. Vatner has been and continues to be one of the most dynamic, productive and respected cardiovascular scientists of our time.

Professor and Chairman
Medical College of Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Wis.

Dr. Cowley’s research has focused on the study of high blood pressure to create ways to bring about a meaningful convergence of the genetic and physiological responses to environmental perturbations.  Over the past decade this research has been directed toward elucidating genetic and physiological pathways that determine the function of the kidney, blood vessels and endocrine systems that influence blood pressure.  This work with his colleagues culminated in the first comprehensive systems biology map of cardiovascular function published in Science in 2001.  Dr. Cowley has served as the chairman of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research of the AHA and as the president of American Physiological Society.  He is the current president of the International Union of Physiological Sciences.  He is the chairman of the Department of Physiology and director of the NIH Specialized Center for Hypertension Research at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Professor and Chairman
Medical College of Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Wis.

Dr. Cowley’s research has focused on the study of high blood pressure to create ways to bring about a meaningful convergence of the genetic and physiological responses to environmental perturbations.  Over the past decade this research has been directed toward elucidating genetic and physiological pathways that determine the function of the kidney, blood vessels and endocrine systems that influence blood pressure.  This work with his colleagues culminated in the first comprehensive systems biology map of cardiovascular function published in Science in 2001.  Dr. Cowley has served as the chairman of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research of the AHA and as the president of American Physiological Society.  He is the current president of the International Union of Physiological Sciences.  He is the chairman of the Department of Physiology and director of the NIH Specialized Center for Hypertension Research at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Chairman, Dept. of Medicine
Director of Research, Dept. of Medicine
Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Boston, Mass.

Victor J. Dzau, M.D., is professor of medicine and director of Molecular and Genomic Vascular Biology at Duke University School of Medicine.  He was appointed chancellor for Health Affairs at Duke University effective July 1, 2004. From 1996-2004, Dr. Dzau was the Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, chairman of the Department of Medicine and director of Research at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Dr. Dzau's academic interests are in cardiovascular translational research.  His laboratory pioneered the concept of tissue angiolensin in cardiovascular disease.  Recently, he used gene transfer and genetic modification of stem cells to develop novel therapies.  He has received the AHA Scientific Council’s Distinguished Achievement Award, the Novartis Award of the Council of High Blood Pressure Research and the Polter Prize in Biomedical Science of the European Academy of Science and Arts.  Dr. Dzau is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science.  He served on the Advisory Committee to the director of the NIH and was a founding member of the Society of Vascular Medicine and Biology, and the founding editor in chief for the American Physiological Society's journal, Physiological Genomics.

CEO VCU Health System Authority
Vice President for Health Services
Richmond, Va.

Dr Kontos was born on the island of Cyprus. He came to the United States in 1959. He graduated from the University of Athens School of Medicine in 1958. He also received a Ph.D. in physiology from the Medical College of Virginia (MCV). After internship, residency in medicine and fellowship in cardiopulmonary research, he joined the faculty of MCV, which in 1968 became a component of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Since 1972 he has been professor of internal medicine at VCU. He held several administrative positions at VCU, including chairman of the Division of Cardiopulmonary Research; chairman of the Division of Cardiology; chairman of the Departments of Pathology and of Internal Medicine; dean of the School of Medicine; vice president for Health Sciences; and CEO of the VCU Health System. He recently retired from his administrative responsibilities. Dr Kontos served as president of the AHA Virginia Affiliate and chaired the AHA Stroke Council. He authored more than 200 original publications, reviews and chapters. His research was in the physiology and pathophysiology of the cerebral microcirculation and especially in the role of free radicals in ischemia, hypertension and brain trauma. He received many honors including: Fellowship from the World Health Organization; Scholarship in Academic Medicine from the Markle Foundation; the Eugene M. Landis award from the Microcirculatory Society; the A. Ross McIntyre award from the University of Nebraska; Distinguished Achievement award from AHA; the Carl J. Wiggers award from the cardiovascular section of the American Physiological Society.  He delivered the George E. Brown lecture in 1984 and the Thomas Willis lecture in 2001. Two of Dr. Kontos' sons are cardiologists, Michael at VCU, and Chris at Duke University.

Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology
University of Iowa College of Medicine

Iowa City, Iowa  In 1954 Dr. Lauer graduated from the University of Manitoba with a B.Sc. and M.D.. His residencies in pediatrics were in the Winnipeg Children’s Hospital, the Sheffield Children’s Hospital (England) and Buffalo Children’s Hospital. He had several fellowships in pediatric cardiology: Buffalo Children’s Hospital, Mayo Clinic (Minnesota), and the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto).

From 1970 to the present, he has been professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Iowa. He has trained many fellows in pediatric cardiology who now hold academic jobs. In 1971, he established the Muscatine Study, a longitudinal study of the origins of atherosclerosis and hypertension beginning in childhood funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.  The Muscatine Study continues to examine the relationship of childhood risk factors to the early manifestations of atherosclerosis in young adults.  Dr. Lauer chaired the Expert Panel on Blood Cholesterol in Children and Adolescents of the National Cholesterol Education Program of the U.S National Institutes of Health  (NIH).  He served as the principal investigator of the Iowa portion of the Dietary Intervention Study in Children (DISC), a controlled trial of lower fat diets in hypercholesterolemic children. He has served as chairman of Epidemiology Study Section 1 of the NIH.  He was the principal investigator of an NIH-funded Specialized Center in Congenital Heart Disease, and also a study of  cardiovascular disease risk factors beginning in a population of school age children and adolescents in Muscatine Iowa.

Director, Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston, Mass.

Dr. Loscalzo is the Wade Professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine and director of the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute at Boston University School of Medicine.  He is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he also obtained his M.D. and Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1977.  He trained in internal medicine and cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, after which he was appointed to the hospital staff and Harvard Medical School faculty.  After 10 years on the Harvard faculty, Dr. Loscalzo moved to Boston University first as chief of cardiology, and in February 1997 chair of medicine.  Author of over 450 articles and 20 books, he is internationally recognized for his work on the vascular biology of nitric oxide, platelet function and atherothrombosis.  He is immediate past chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the NHLBI and the Cardiovascular Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and current director of the NHLBI-sponsored Specialized Center of Research in Ischemic Heart Disease at Boston University.  He is also editor-in-chief of Circulation.

Professor of Medicine, Chief of Cardiology
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Md.

Eduardo Marbán’s professional career is dedicated to understanding disorders of cardiac rhythm and pump function, and to developing novel treatments based upon fundamental insights into mechanism.  A native of Havana, Cuba, Dr. Marbán came to this country with his parents at age 6 as a political refugee. He earned his B.S. in mathematics from Wilkes College in Pennsylvania, and then attended the Yale University School of Medicine in a combined M.D./Ph.D.program. Dr Marbán was an intern and medical resident on the Osler service at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and then completed his cardiology fellowship there.  Appointed to the Johns Hopkins University faculty as assistant professor in the Department of Medicine in 1985, Dr Marbán reached the rank of professor in 1991. In 1998, Dr Marbán became director of the newly-established Johns Hopkins Institute of Molecular Cardiobiology, an inter-departmental program designed to foster fundamental research into the workings of the heart. Dr Marbán was honored as the first faculty member, in 1998, to occupy the Michel Mirowski Professorship in Cardiology. This endowed chair honors Dr. Mirowski, the inventor of the automatic implantable defibrillator. In 2003, Dr Marbán became the chief of cardiology at Johns Hopkins; he also directs the Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center at Johns Hopkins, a $24 million, four-year program focused on identifying novel risk factors for sudden cardiac death.

Dr Marbán has received the Basic Research Prize of the American Heart Association (AHA), the Research Achievement Award of the International Society for Heart Research, and the Distinguished Service Award of the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences of the AHA. He serves as editor-in-chief of Circulation Research, the world’s leading journal of cardiovascular investigation. In his research, Dr Marbán has made several discoveries that have translated into patents (five issued, six pending). These are in the fields of gene therapy, particularly for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, and drug treatments for heart disease and stroke. Dr Marbán’s inventions have formed the basis for two startup companies (Paralex, subsequently acquired by Cardiome Pharma and Excigen). One of his inventions has already led to the testing of a novel treatment for heart failure in human clinical trials.

Professor of Interventional Radiology and Director of Research
Oregon Health and Sciences University
Portland, Ore.

Professor and director of research at the Dotter Interventional Institute of Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, he received his medical degree and started his angiographic career in Prague, Czech Republic. In 1967, he moved to the United States on the invitation of Dr. Charles Dotter and has worked at OHSU since. Dr. Rösch’s research work has covered a wide range of vascular and interventional radiology including development of the TIPS technique and introduction of embolization treatment of GI hemorrhage. Dr. Rösch has published 451 scientific papers and book chapters, two books and 14 teaching films/videos/CDs. Rösch is an honorary fellow or member of several U.S. and foreign societies and has received many awards. These include four gold medals of the U.S., European and Japanese radiologic societies, Lifetime Achievement Awards from CIRSE and the AHA Scientific Council’s Distinguished Achievement Award.

Professor Emeritus
Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, Ill.

Jeremiah Stamler, M.D., first chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine, received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in New York in 1940 and M.D. degree from the State University of New York in 1943.

Dr. Stamler's association with Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine began in 1958, when he joined the Department of Medicine; from 1959 to 1965 he was an assistant professor in the department, becoming a full professor in 1972.  That same year Dr. Stamler was named professor and chair of the newly created Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine.  He served as chair until 1986, and as professor until 1990, when he became emeritus professor.  From 1973-90 Dr. Stamler held the distinguished position of Dingman Professor of Cardiology at the Medical School; from 1973-85 he also served as chairman of the Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

New York Medical College
Valhalla, N.Y.
Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences

Dr. Piero Anversa received his M.D. degree from the University of Parma, Italy in 1965.  He became a professor of pathology at the University of Parma and subsequently professor of medicine in microbiology, immunology and pathology at New York Medical College.  Dr. Anversa is also vice-chairman of the Department of Medicine and director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute.  He has published over 200 original articles and published 61 book chapters/review articles.

New York Medical College
Valhalla, N.Y.
Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences

Dr. Piero Anversa received his M.D. degree from the University of Parma, Italy in 1965.  He became a professor of pathology at the University of Parma and subsequently professor of medicine in microbiology, immunology and pathology at New York Medical College.  Dr. Anversa is also vice-chairman of the Department of Medicine and director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute.  He has published over 200 original articles and published 61 book chapters/review articles.

Chair, Family/Preventive Medicine
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, Calif.
Council on Epidemiology and Prevention

From the day of her entrance into Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, this Evanston, Ill. seeker of the truth knew medicine was to be her lifelong study. This search was to become concentrated on discovering the causes and hopefully the cures for epidemic illnesses.

After completing her internship and residency, she took post-doctoral studies in Clinical Medicine of the Tropics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She then moved on to the University of Minnesota, where she explored advanced epidemiology; then to John Hopkins to study genetics.

International appreciation of her work has come in the form of awards, fellowships, and endowments. Internationally recognized as an expert in epidemiology, she is currently the Chair of the Department of Community and Family Medicine at the University of California at San Diego. Elizabeth Barrett-Connor's main research has been into the factors promoting a healthy old age.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Boston, Mass.
Council on Clinical Cardiology

Dr. Braunwald received his medical training at New York University and completed his medical residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He has served as both chief of the cardiology branch and clinical director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and as the founding chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California-San Diego. Dr. Braunwald is the only cardiologist who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has served as president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of Professors of Medicine.

He has received numerous honors and awards including the Research Achievement and Herrick Awards of the American Heart Association, the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American College of Cardiology, the Phillip's Award of the American College of Physicians, the Williams Award of the Association of Professors of Medicine, and the Kober medal of the Association of American Physicians. He is the recipient of eight honorary degrees from distinguished universities throughout the world. In 1996, Harvard University created the Eugene Braunwald Professorship in Medicine as a permanently endowed chair.

Dr. Braunwald is the author of more than 1000 publications and an editor of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, (editor-in-chief of the 11th edition and the 15th edition, currently in preparation) and the founding editor/author of heart disease, now in its 5th edition. These two books are the leading texts in internal medicine and cardiology respectively. Dr. Braunwald has been chairman of the TIMI trials since 1984 and he has led the SAVE and CARE trials.

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, Texas
Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology

Michael S. Brown received a B.A. degree in chemistry in 1962 and an M.D. degree in 1966 from the University of Pennsylvania. He was an intern and resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Earl Stadtman at the National Institutes of Health.

In 1971, he came to Dallas where he rose through the ranks to become a professor in 1976. He is currently Paul J. Thomas Professor of Molecular Genetics and Director of the Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

Dr. Brown and his long-time colleague, Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, discovered the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor, which controls the level of cholesterol in blood and in cells. They showed that mutations in this receptor cause Familial Hypercholesterolemia, a disorder that leads to premature heart attacks in one out of every 500 people in most populations. They have received many awards for this work, including the U.S. National Medal of Science and the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology.

Mount Sinai School of Medicine
New York, N.Y.
Council on Clinical Cardiology

Dr. Valentin Fuster received his M.D. degree from Barcelona University and did his internship at Hospital Clinico in Barcelona. He did his residency at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in Rochester, Minn., and then served as a professor of medicine and consultant in cardiology. In 1982, Dr. Fuster went to Mount Sinai Medical Center as chief of the Division of Cardiology.  Between 1991-94, Dr. Fuster was the Mallinckrodt Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the cardiac unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1994 he returned to Mount Sinai Medical Center as director of the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute, and as dean for Academic Affairs at The Mount Sinai Medical Center.  Dr. Fuster is the past president of the American Heart Association, a member the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Advisory Council, and chairman of the Fellowship Training Directors Program of the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Fuster has published more than 400 articles on coronary disease, atherosclerosis and thrombosis.

He has been the recipient of the Andreas Gruntzig Scientific Award of the European Society of Cardiology, the Lewis A. Conner Memorial Award, for scientific accomplishment, by the American Heart Association, and the Distinguished Scientist Award, for scientific accomplishment in cardiology, from the American College of Cardiology.  Dr. Fuster has received the 1996 Principe de Asturias Award of Science and Technology, the highest award to Spanish-speaking scientists from the son of the King and Queen of Spain. In March 2000, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the American College of Cardiology for his contribution to Medicine.

University of Montreal and McGill University
Montreal, QC, Canada
Council on High Blood Pressure Research

For 40 years, Dr. Genest was one of the world leaders in hypertension research and patients’ management.  In 1962, Dr. Genest helped save the Université Montréal, faculty of medicine, which after many successive visits, was threatened with cancellation of its accreditation as a medical school by the Joint U.S. and Canada Council on Medical Schools.  He was appointed organizer of the Montreal meeting in 1965, and because of the increasing number of attendees to the CITC annual meetings, Dr. Genest proposed the club be changed to a formal clinical investigation society with its own charter and by laws.  Dr. Genest created the Clinical Research Institute of Montréal, which has been a model and prototype of the modern organization of clinical research. The Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, inaugurated in 1967, was the first one to establish a priority the creation of teams of physician-scientists and basic researchers in each thematic laboratory. 

Dr. Genest has been a consistent and ardent promoter of biomedical and clinical research and of its importance in modern society, stressing the importance of the physician-scientist for the understanding of physiological process toward more effective treatment and prevention of diseases. Dr. Genest is considered giant in Canadian medicine, and one of the first three living Canadian physicians to be nominated in 1993 to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.  His many contributions have been recognized by numerous awards.

University of Miami School of Medicine
Miami, Fla.
Stroke Council

Dr. Myron Ginsberg has dedicated his professional career to stroke-related research. This career has now spanned three decades and is filled with outstanding accomplishments reflecting his scientific expertise.  Dr. Ginsberg’s interests in stroke became apparent with his first faculty appointment in the Stroke Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania.  In 1979, he moved to the University of Miami where he served first as co-director and then as director of the Cerebral Vascular Research Center, a position he still holds. 

As evidence of his research excellence, Dr. Ginsberg was an American Heart Association Established Investigator and a Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator.  He served on the organizing committees of numbers international scientific meetings and in 1998 chaired the prestigious sixteenth Princeton Conference on Cerebrovascular Diseases. Dr. Ginsberg has chaired or been a member of several federal and AHA scientific review committees.  These have included the NIH Neurosciences-A Study Section and the AHA’s Cardiovascular-D and Brain Committees.  He has also been a member of the editorial boards of several major stroke-related journals, including Stroke, and served as editor-in-chief of the journal of Cerebral Blood Flow Metabolism from 1991-1997.  In 2002, Dr. Ginsberg was the American Stroke Association’s Thomas Willis Lecturer.

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, Texas
Council Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology

Joseph L. Goldstein attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., and received the B.S. degree in chemistry, summa cum laude, in 1962. He then attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.  After receiving an M.D. degree in 1966, Goldstein moved to Boston where he was an intern and resident in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (1966-68), where he met and developed a friendship with Michael Brown, his long-term scientific collaborator.

Goldstein spent two years (1968-70) at the National Institutes of Health. The opportunity to work in a first-rate basic science laboratory while carrying a limited clinical responsibility proved highly influential in shaping Goldstein's career. Here, he acquired scientific skills and taste, experienced the thrill of discovery and the excitement of science, and appreciated the power of a molecular biology approach to human disease.

In 1972, Goldstein returned to the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas, where he was appointed head of the medical school's first Division of Medical Genetics. In 1977, he became chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas and Paul J. Thomas Professor of Medicine and Genetics, a position that he currently holds.

Goldstein was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 1980. In 1982 he received honorary Doctor of Science degrees from the University of Chicago and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In 1985, he and Brown received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine and other numerous honors for their research.

Duke University Medical Center
Durham, N.C.
Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences

Dr. Lefkowitz is the James B. Duke Professor of Medicine of Biochemistry at Duke University Medical Center. He received his B.A. and M.D. degrees from Columbia University and clinical and research training at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, the National Institutes of Health and Massachusetts General Hospital. As a molecular pharmacologist he has focused on the molecular structure and regulatory mechanisms controlling the function of the adrenergic receptors that mediate the actions of catecholamines. Dr. Lefkowitz has received numerous awards and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Stanford University
Stanford, Calif.
Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia

In 1964, Dr. Miller attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., with a dual major in mathematics and chemistry. He returned to California to matriculate at Stanford University Medical School. After being awarded his M.D. degree in 1972, he received his general, peripheral vascular, thoracic and cardiac surgical residency training at Stanford University Medical Center under the aegis of Dr. Norman Shumway. He was appointed assistant professor of cardiovascular surgery in 1978, promoted to associate professor in 1983, and became a full professor of cardiovascular surgery in 1989 at Stanford. In 1998, he was honored to hold the Thelma and Henry Doelger Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery endowed chair at Stanford University. He has directed the Cardiovascular Surgical Physiology Research Laboratories at Stanford since 1982 where the work has predominantly focused on left ventricular mechanics and physiology.

His clinical surgical activities are predominately centered on valvular heart disease and thoracic aortic problems, including, mitral valve repair, thoracic aortic aneurysms, aortic dissections, and thoracic aortic stent-grafting. He founded the Stanford Marfan's and Associated Connective Tissue Disorders Clinic in 1988 and has been a key element of its subsequent success. These efforts have been responsible in part for the growth of Stanford's thoracic aortic surgery and mitral repair programs.

Dr. Miller is a member of many prominent surgical societies certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Dr. Miller gave the invited honorary keynote lecture at the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery meeting in Lisbon. Miller serves as associate editor for Acquired Heart Disease of The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, and is (or has been) a member of the numerous editorial boards. In 1993, he was vice chairman of the AHA Committee on Scientific Sessions Program (CSSP). He was chairman of the American Heart Association Cardio-Thoracic and Vascular Surgery Council in 1995 and 1997. In 1994-95, he was elected president of The Western Thoracic Surgical Association.

Dr. Miller is actively engaged in basic laboratory research and has also been a energetic clinical investigator. He has contributed over 404 papers and 208 abstracts to the cardiovascular medical and surgical literature. His laboratory work is currently dedicated to the investigation of left ventricular and cardiac mechanics, bioenergetics, and LV physiology, with special focus on the mitral valve and the mitral subvalvular apparatus.

Neurology Institute
Columbia University-Presbyterian Medical Center
New York, N.Y.
Stroke Council

Dr. Mohr is from Lynchburg, Virginia, graduated from, Virginia Episcopal School, Haverford College, and the University of Virginia where he was a USPHS 5-Year Plan Fellow and received an M.S. (pharmacology) and M.D. He trained in medicine at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital, in Neurology at the New York Neurological Institute, and in Neuropathology and Stroke at the Massachusetts General Hospital (C.M. Fisher).

After three years Army service at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research during the Vietnam War, he returned in 1971 to the Massachusetts General Hospital to found and direct the Stroke Service and the Neuro Intensive Care Unit, and the Neurology Unit at the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Hospital. He became founding chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of South Alabama, and returned in 1983 to the New York Neurological Institute as the first Daniel Sciarra Professor of Clinical Neurology.  He is now the director of the newly-formed Doris and Stanley Tananbaum Stroke Center.

Prof. J. P. Mohr is a world renowned neurologist. He has specialized in all aspects of stroke and runs and manages a state of the art stroke unit. It is in the therapeutic, clinical trial and research aspects of stroke that he excels. He is author or co-author of over 234 publications, among them a variety of peer-reviewed and invited publications and several books, one of which is very popular and a must for neurology residents and called. A Guide to Clinical Neurology. by J.P. Mohr and J.C Gautier.

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, Texas
Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences

Dr. Olson completed his doctorate in biochemistry at Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University in 1981. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Washing University School of Medicine, where he was supported by American Heart Association and National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowships, he joined the faculty of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1984 as an assistant professor. In 1991, he became chairman of that department. 

He moved in 1995 to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where he is professor and chairman of the Department of Molecular Biology, associate director and principal investigator of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Basic Research in Cancer. He holds the Nancy B. and Jake L. Hamon Distinguished Chair in Basic Cancer Research at UT Southwestern. 

Doctor Olson has served on numerous national committees and has been a member of the AHA Council on Basic CV Sciences, Katz Young Investigator Award Selection Committee, and AHA Research Committee.  He serves on the editorial boards of Circulation and Circulation Research; he also served as editor in chief of Developmental Biology. 

Dr. Olson has been an established investigator of the AHA, and his previous honors include the Edgar Haber Cardiovascular Research Award and Gill Heart Institute Award for Outstanding Contributions to Cardiovascular Medicine, and the AHA Thomas W. Smith Memorial Lecture. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.  He has documented his research in more than 250 scientific publications.

Cardiovascular Research Institute
San Francisco, Calif.
Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young

Abraham Rudolph has been one of the most significant investigators in pediatric cardiology, taking the knowledge gained from his experimental work in fetal physiology and applying it to cardiology. Educated at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, Dr. Rudolph emigrated to the United States and trained in pediatric cardiology and physiology at Children's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School. He developed techniques for cardiac catheterization of infants and children and was a pioneer in neonatal heart catheterization.

In 1966, Dr. Rudolph joined the faculty of the University of California in San Francisco as director of Pediatric Cardiology and senior staff member of the Cardiovascular Research Institute, where he developed a major research program in fetal and neonatal physiology. He pioneered techniques for chronic instrumentation of fetal Iambs in utero, and developed the radionuclide microsphere method to study the course and distribution of the fetal circulation.

The microsphere technique has been a major advance in cardiovascular physiology and continues, with variations, be one of the methods most frequently used for determining total and regional blood flow. His studies have helped to define the influence of congenital heart lesions prenatally and the effects of birth on the normal and abnormal circulation.

Dr. Rudolph is widely recognized as a distinguished investigator and educator and has received many honors, including the E. Mead Johnson and Borden Awards for Research in Pediatrics, the Research Achievement Award of the American Heart Association, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Harvard Medical School
Boston, Mass.
Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences

Dr. Seidman is professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Cardiovascular Genetics Service at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. After undergraduate studies at Harvard College, she earned her medical degree at George Washington University School of Medicine and was an intern and resident in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She received subspecialty training in cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Seidman is a recipient of the 2002 Bristol-Myers Squibb Award, which she shared with Jonathan Seidman.  Christine Seidman’s lab recently discovered a novel molecular mechanism for cardiac hypertrophy — mutations in genes that regulate myocardial glycogen metabolism. This class of human gene mutation accounts for unexplained cardiac hypertrophy that is sometimes massive and is associated with life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias.

Houston, Texas
Council on Clinical Cardiology

James T. Willerson, M.D., is the president of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Upon graduating as a member of Alpha Omega Alpha from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, he completed his medical and cardiology training as an intern, resident, and research and clinical fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and as a clinical associate at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Dr. Willerson is a former chairman of the National American Heart Association Research Committee and of the NIH Cardiovascular and Renal Study Section. He has received the Award of Merit from the American Heart Association and has served as a member of the Board of Directors and Science Steering Committee.

Dr. Willerson has served as visiting professor and invited lecturer at more than 170 institutions. He has received numerous national and international awards, including the AHA’s James B. Herrick Award in 1993 and the ACC's Distinguished Scientist Award for 2000. He is a member and past president of the Paul Dudley White Cardiology Society at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

He has served on numerous editorial boards for professional publications, including the American Journal of Cardiology, American Journal of Medicine, Circulation Research, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and The New England Journal of Medicine. Since 1993, he has been the editor-in-chief of Circulation, the major publication of the American Heart Association. He has edited or co-edited 20 textbooks and published more than 770 scientific articles.

His recent research work has concentrated on elucidating mechanisms responsible for the conversion from stable to unstable coronary heart disease syndromes, the prevention of unstable angina and acute myocardial infarction, and the detection and treatment of unstable atherosclerotic plaques. Very recently, he and his colleagues at the Texas Heart Institute and in Houston, Texas, and at Hospital Procardico in Rio de Janeiro have begun bone marrow derived stem cell transplantation directly into the hearts of patients with severe heart failure and have demonstrated objective and subjective evidence of clinical improvement. The work will be expanded to centers in the United States.