The American Heart Association will recognize eight leaders in cardiology at the organization's annual Scientific Sessions conference, set for Nov. 16-18.
The awards were announced in Nov. 6 news releases from the AHA.
Here are the leaders being honored:
- Katherine Gallagher, MD, Leland Ira Doan Research Professor of Surgery and vice chair of basic and translational science at Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan Medical School, will receive the 2024 Joseph A. Vita Award.
The award is given to a scientist whose work has been published in AHA journals and whose research has influenced the field of cardiovascular biology or cardiovascular health during the past five years. - Robert Harrington, MD, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of New York City-based Weill Cornell Medicine, provost for medical affairs of Cornell University and attending cardiologist at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, will receive the 2024 Chairman's Award.
- Virginia Howard, PhD, a distinguished professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, will receive this year's Population Research Prize.
Dr. Howard is the lead stroke epidemiologist for the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke study, which examines why Black adults and individuals in the Southeastern U.S. experience higher rates of death from stroke. - Jane Newburger, MD, associate chair for academic affairs in the department of cardiology at Boston Children's Hospital and the Commonwealth Professor of Pediatrics at Boston-based Harvard Medical School, will receive the 2024 Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award.
The award is given to an individual who has committed to teaching and mentoring the next generation of faculty researchers, educators and healthcare professionals. - Roderic Pettigrew, MD, PhD, endowed Robert A. Welch Professor of Medicine and former inaugural dean of the School of Engineering Medicine at Houston-based Texas A&M University in Houston, will receive the 2024 Research Achievement Award.
Dr. Pettigrew was the founding director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health. His latest innovation being developed is the Siemens Cima.X, an MRI scanner for detecting heart disease before people have a cardiovascular event. - Lauren Sansing, MD, a professor of neurology and vice chair of academic and faculty affairs in the department of neurology at New Haven, Conn.-based Yale School of Medicine, will receive the Basic Research Prize.
Dr. Sansing's research focuses on complex neurovascular disease recovery. - Silvi Shah, MD, an associate professor of nephrology and hypertension at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, will receive the 2024 Dr. Nanette K. Wenger Research Goes Red Award.
The award recognizes the best research article or articles published in AHA journals during the previous year that focused on cardiovascular disease and stroke in women.
Dr. Shah is receiving the award for her article, "Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Outcomes in Patients With Kidney Failure," published May 3 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. - Herman Taylor Jr., MD, endowed professor and director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Atlanta-based Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, will receive the Clinical Research Prize.
Dr. Taylor was the principal investigator and founding director of the Jackson Heart Study, which explores genetic and environmental factors influencing heart disease for Black Americans.