History of Cardiology at Emory

Emory University School of Medicine has a long-standing history of contributions to modern cardiology. The first diagnostic catheterizations were performed at Emory by James Warren and Eugene Stead in the 1940s, and Drs. Stead and Warren published seminal descriptions of the hemodynamics of heart failure and atrial septal defects from this work in the 1940s and 1950s. Dr. Hurst, who served as the Chairman of Medicine at Emory from 1957-1986 is an internationally renowned author and was the originator of The Heart, one of the premier textbooks on Cardiology. Dr. Hurst remains very active as an Emeritus Professor at Emory. Emory is recognized as one of the founding centers of interventional cardiology. Dr. Andreas Grüntzig, the founder of coronary angioplasty, came to Emory in 1980, and remained on the faculty until his death in 1985. Our interventional center still bears his name. Dr. Leon Goldberg pioneered the use of dopamine as a clinical agent for cardiovascular support at Emory in the 1960s.

The basic research program in vascular biology and medicine was initiated in 1988, with the recruitment to Emory of Dr. R. Wayne Alexander, our current Chair of Medicine. Vascular research in the Division of Cardiology at Emory University has grown enormously during the past 15 years. Dr. Alexander recruited a world-class team of researchers who have made major contributions to our understanding of basic and clinical vascular biology. The current chief of Cardiology, Dr. David Harrison has spurred the division on to remain at the forefront of cardiovascular research. The research group in the Cardiology Division now consists of eight full professors, Drs. Harrison, Alexander, Vaccarino, Griendling, Block, Jones, Quyyumi, Langberg and Weintraub, seven associate professors, Drs. Taylor, Dudley, Jo, Galis, and Leon several assistant professors including Drs. Fukai, Ushio-Fukai, Ahmad, Searles, Sorescu, Dikalov, Abramsom and Zafari. This group has attained international recognition for research in oxidative stress and vascular disease.

An important component of our research program is the Free Radicals in Medicine Core (FRIMCORE), which is designed to facilitate studies of reactive oxygen species in biological systems. This core provides state-of-the-art approaches to detection and quantification of reactive oxygen species using a variety of methods including ESR spectroscopy. In addition, we benefit tremendously from the Internal Medicine Imaging Core. This facility uses state-of-the-art microscopic technique to study cellular and subcellular processes involved in vascular disease.

In addition, major efforts are underway to enhance our translational research program. One focus is to understand factors that modulate blood flow and blood pressure in humans. Another major research direction is to investigate the utility of stem cells in treatment of cardiovascular disease. We also have a collaboration with the Icelandic company, DeCODE, to examine genetic trends in cardiovascular disease.

Efforts in outcomes research began in 1986 with the goal of enhancing the Emory cardiovascular databank. The Emory Center for Outcomes Research (ECOR), directed by Dr. William Weintraub, was established to promote and conduct research aimed at improving patient care and/or forming health care policy, while also providing service and education in broad areas of translational, clinical, epidemiologic, and outcomes research. Investigators at ECOR have expertise in clinical medicine, nursing, biostatistics, health care economics, cost-effectiveness analysis, health related quality of life, clinical trials, clinical epidemiology and translational research. The first major randomized trial conducted by ECOR was EAST, beginning in 1987. The first multicenter trial was the Lovastatin Restenosis Trial (LRT), which began in 1991. Today ECOR participates in over 20 funded projects as diverse as registries with over 150,000 patients to clinical trials such as TACTICS-TIMI 18 with over 160 participating sites.

Overall, during the past decade, our research team has been at the forefront of cardiovascular investigation. We have successfully established a translational research program that provides the opportunity to extend our findings to the study of human diseases. The culmination of our history at Emory, the excellence of our investigators and our focused research effort has placed us in a unique position to develop innovative diagnostic tests, establish new therapeutic modalities and gain further insight into the pathophysiology of cardiovascular diseases.