Michel Haïssaguerre, MD

The Heart Rhythm 2012 Founder's Lecture recipient is Prof Michel Haïssaguerre, MD

Meet Michel Haïssaguerre 

Born in Bayonne, France, in 1955, Prof Michel Haïssaguerre graduated in medicine in 1982 and specialized in cardiology in 1984. He became assistant-professor in 1988 at the University. He became a Professor of Cardiology in 1994 and he currently teaches at the Hôpital Cardiologique du Haut-Lévêque, Bordeaux- Pessac. Michel Haïssaguerre enjoys an outstanding national and international scientific reputation. 

He has received numerous honors and awards, including the Prix Robert Debré (1982), the Prix de l’Information Cardiologique (1990), the Prix Ela Medical (1992), the Nylin Swedish Prize (2002), the Best Scientist Award Grüntzig 2003 (European Society of Cardiology), the Pioneer in Cardiac Electrophysiology award 2004 by the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology (NASPE) – currently the Heart Rhythm Society, and the Mirowski Award 2009 for excellence in clinical cardiology and electrophysiology. In 2010, he received the Lefoulon-Delalande Price (Institut de France), the Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine (Switzerland), and became a member of the Académie des Sciences; and the Distinguished Scientist Golden Lionel prize (Italy) was awarded to him in 2011. Eight of recipients of Louis Jeantet Prize have obtained later the Nobel Prize.

He serves on the editorial boards of many major journals of cardiology, including European Heart Journal, Circulation Arrhythmia, Europace, The Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology, Journal of Interventional Cardiology, Heart Rhythm, and Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology: PACE.

His scientific and clinical work focuses on cardiovascular electrophysiology, particularly on cardiac fibrillation. He is best known for his remarkable contributions in the area of atrial fibrillation ablation. He was the first to detect the importance of pulmonary vein triggers and drivers in the genesis of atrial fibrillation. In addition, he was first to propose the technique of pulmonary vein isolation, which underlies current methods used throughout the world for atrial fibrillation cure. His team has also demonstrated that Purkinje cells were the main triggers of human ventricular fibrillation, with or without heart disease.

M.Haïssaguerre has published more than 460 publications in the leading peer-reviewed cardiology journals dealing mainly with radiofrequency current endocardial ablation of tachyarrhythmias.