Congratulations to the 2009 award recipients: Alden H. Harken, MD; José Jalife, MD, FHRS and Melvin M. Scheinman, MD, FHRS. They will be recognized at Heart Rhythm 2009 in May.
Pioneer in Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology
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| Alden H. Harken, MD, Pioneer in Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology |
Alden H. Harken, MD graduated from Case Western Reserve Medical School in 1967 and completed surgical and pediatric cardiovascular surgical residencies at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Boston Children’s Medical Center. After three years as an investigator at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. During his eight years there he published more than 100 scientific papers, was awarded two NIH grants and was quickly advanced to the rank of Professor of Surgery. In 1983, he accepted the position as Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Colorado’s Health Sciences Center. After two enormously successful decades in Denver, he accepted his current position as Professor and Chairman of the University of California San Francisco – East Bay Department of Surgery.
Harken’s interest in and contributions to the field of cardiac electrophysiology began early in his illustrious career when as an Assistant Professor of Surgery he, along with Drs. Mark Josephson and Leonard Horowitz, performed the seminal work in mapping and surgical ablation for ventricular tachyarrhythmias. The fruits of this ground-breaking labor formed the cornerstone of our current understanding of the pathophysiology of ventricular tachycardia and have provided the basis for today’s methods of ablative treatment of ischemic ventricular tachycardia. He was one of the early investigators in the implantation of implantable tachyarrhythmia devices and became one of the foremost experts in the surgical treatment of supraventricular tachyarrhythmias.
Harken has authored 500 scientific publications, been awarded 10 NIH grants and has served as the Director of the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, a Regent of the American College of Surgeons and President of the Society of University Surgeons and the Association of Academic Surgery.
In addition to his clinical and research accomplishments, Harken is the consummate teacher, educating generations of students, surgical residents and electrophysiology fellows in the pathophysiology and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. He has been the recipient of teaching awards in every institution he has attended, including the distinguished Lindback Award at the University of Pennsylvania in 1983 and the Julia Burke Outstanding Teacher of the Year in both 2005 and 2006. In 2000, he was awarded one of the University of Colorado’s highest honors, the Thomas Jefferson Award, for his excellence and commitment to academic ideals and for his participation in humanitarian activities.
Harken’s energy, insight, enthusiasm and innovative work have created a legacy that will influence the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias for many years to come. He has clearly been a pioneer in the field, and richly deserves this award.
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Distinguished Scientist Award
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| José Jalife, MD, FHRS, Distinguished Service Award recipient |
José Jalife, MD, FHRS is the Cyrus and Jane Farrehi Professor of Cardiovascular Research and a professor of internal medicine and molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Michigan Medical School, and co-director of the UM Center for Arrhythmia Research. He was born in Mexico City, Mexico and received his medical degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1972. After clinical training in Spain, he returned to Mexico to conduct research in cardiovascular pharmacology and physiology at the Universidad Nacional and the National Institute of Cardiology. In 1973, he moved to the United States to work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, NY, and the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory in Utica, NY, headed by Gordon K. Moe, MD, Ph.D. Jalife then joined the Department of Pharmacology, SUNY Upstate Medical University at Syracuse, and became its Chairman in 1988, leaving for Michigan in January 2008.
Today Jalife is one of the leading scientists in the world studying normal and abnormal heart rhythms and his research has led to fundamental observations on mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias. These insights will provide new therapeutic approaches to treating patients with inherited ion channel abnormalities as well as for acquired arrhythmias such as atrial and ventricular fibrillation.
Jalife’s work ranges from the molecule to the bedside, including the molecular mechanisms and nonlinear dynamics of heart rhythm and conduction disturbances, leading to reevaluation of classical criteria for the diagnosis of complex arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation and ventricular fibrillation. He has studied the cellular mechanisms of dynamic vagal control of heart rate and atrioventricular conduction and the mechanisms of pacemaker synchronization in the sinoatrial node; non-linear dynamics of excitation and propagation in isolated cardiac tissues; wave propagation and spiral wave formation in cardiac muscle; and more recently, the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying sudden death in inherited arrhythmogenic diseases.
His work has led to major advances toward elucidating the molecular and cellular bases of the initiation and propagation of electrical impulses in the heart and the fundamental mechanisms of complex life-threatening arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. He has published more than 250 original papers and review articles, and has edited/authored thirteen books, including the internationally recognized Cardiac Electrophysiology: From Cell to Bedside, now in its fifth edition. His research has been supported by RO1 grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Established Investigator and Scientist Development grants from the American Heart Association (AHA), numerous of Grants-in-Aid and fellowships from AHA and the Heart Rhythm Society, and two currently active Program Project Grants from the NHLBI.
Jalife's awards include the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American College of Cardiology, the Lucian Award for Research in Circulatory Diseases from McGill University, the President’s Award for Research at SUNY Upstate Medical University, the Professor Pierre Rijlant Award from the Académie Royale de Médecine de Belgique in Brussels, Belgium, and the 2002 State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. In 2008, Dr. Jalife was elected Honorary Member of the Mexican National Academy of Medicine.
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Distinguished Teacher Award
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| Melvin M. Scheinman, MD, FHRS, Distinguished Teacher Award recipient |
Melvin M. Scheinman, MD, FHRS, was born in Brooklyn, NY, received his BA from Johns Hopkins University, and his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He did his house officer training at the University of North Carolina, and his cardiology training at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF). The latter, where he currently is Emeritus Professor of Medicine and immediate past Chief of the Electrocardiology and Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Section (Moffitt Hospital), has been his academic home ever since. Along the way, and among his many fine accomplishments, he was also the 10th president of our Society.
Scheinman is truly an extraordinary teacher. He has done it at the bedside, in the clinical laboratory, in the conference room, in the classroom, in the seminar, in the tutorial, with the written word (original scientific contributions, review articles, chapters in books, edited books) and as an Associate Editor of Circulation, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Pacing and Cardiac Electrophysiology.
His aptitude for teaching was recognized early in his career (1971) when he was one of the original recipients of the American Heart Association’s Teaching Scholar Award. In 1975, he was awarded a National Library of Medicine grant for production of self-instructional tapes, and subsequently, he was involved in the production of ACCEL tapes and NASPETapes (he was on the NASPETapes Editorial Board). Over the past several years, he has developed a series of teaching videos for electrocardiography, electrophysiology and cardiac arrhythmias for use with lay groups and physicians. These tapes are quite remarkable for their graphics and clarity. His superb abilities as a teacher are also manifest by the large number of postdoctoral fellows from all over the world who have flocked to him, and who now serve as academics and community specialists.
At the national level, Scheinman has organized courses for the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) as well as the Heart Rhythm Society. For many years, he was a co-director of the ACC Board Review Course, directing the section on clinical cardiac electrophysiology; a member of the board of the American Board of Internal Medicine Qualifying Exam for Cardiac Electrophysiology (1993-1998), and received the Gifted Teacher Award from the ACC in 2001.
Scheinman has received numerous teaching awards at UCSF, including the Dean’s Special Commendation for Teaching Excellence (1971) and the Kaiser Teaching Award (1972), the Senior Student Commendation for Excellence in Teaching (1973 and 1975), the AHA Paul D. White Citation for International Service (1978) and the prestigious UCSF Distinction in Teaching Award in 2004.
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