Cardiovascular Medicine

Dr. Ridker is the Eugene Braunwald Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and directs the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, a translational research unit at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital that focuses on the molecular and genetic epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases. Dr. Ridker’s primary research brings together classical tools of large-scale, population based epidemiology with emerging genetic and molecular techniques designed to improve our ability to predict and prevent thrombotic occlusion. Particular areas of interest involve molecular and genetic determinants of hemostasis, thrombosis, and inflammation with a focus on “predictive medicine”, early disease diagnosis, and the underlying causes and prevention of acute coronary syndromes. While much of Dr Ridker’s work has focused on inflammatory mediators of vascular risk and the use of inflammatory biomarkers such as CRP to improve cardiovascular risk prediction, with a strong background in statistical methods, clinical trial methodology, and study design, Dr Ridker also has served as the Principal Investigator or Study Chairman of multiple clinical trials funded by federal and non-federal sources including PREVENT, PRINCE, LANCET, VAL-MARC and the ongoing JUPITER trial being conducted in 26 countries. With regard to genetic epidemiology, Dr Ridker is currently Principal Investigator of the Women’s Genome Health Study, a 27,000 participant genome wide association study based upon participants in the NIH-funded Women’s Health Study that is designed to ascertain the genetic determinants of a wide variety of vascular disorders as well as lipid and inflammatory intermediate phenotypes. Since 2003, Dr Ridker has been a Reynolds Investigator at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and received additional research support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Leducq Foundation.

References:

Ridker PM, Cannon CP, Morrow D, Rifai N, Rose LM, McCabe CH, Pfeffer MA, Braunwald E. C-reactive protein levels and outcomes after statin therapy. N Engl J Med 2005; 352:20-8.

Ridker PM, Cook NR, Lee IM, Gordon D, Gaziano JM, Manson JE, Hennekens CH, Buring JE. A randomized trial of low-dose aspirin in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in women. N Engl J Med 2005; 352:1293-304.

Ridker PM, Rifai N, Cook NR, Bradwin G, Buring JE. Non-HDL cholesterol, apolipoproteins A-I and B100, standard lipid measures, lipid ratios, and CRP as risk factors for cardiovascular disease in women. JAMA 2005; 294:326-33.

Mora S, Lee IM, Buring JE, Ridker PM. Association of physical activity and body mass index with novel and traditional cardiovascular biomarkers in women. JAMA 2006; 295:1412-9.

Suk Danik J, Rifai N, Buring JE, Ridker PM. Lipoprotein(a), measured with an assay independent of apolipoprotein(a) isoform size, and risk of future cardiovascular events among initially healthy women. JAMA 2006; 296:1363-70.

Ridker PM, Buring JE, Rifai N, Cook NR. Development and validation of improved algorithms for the assessment of global cardiovascular risk in women: the Reynolds Risk Score. JAMA 2007; 297:611-9.

Bansal S, Buring JE, Rifai N, Mora S, Sacks FM, Ridker PM. Fasting compared with nonfasting triglycerides and risk of cardiovascular events in women. JAMA 2007; 298:309-16.