On a Tuesday evening this past September, Victor J. Dzau, MD, FACC, found himself welcomed as the guest of honor at an intimate reception at the Reserve Officers Association in Washington, DC. Surrounded by members of the American Heart Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the ACC, including ACC President Patrick T. O’Gara, MD, FACC, ACC Board of Governors Chair-Elect Robert A. Shor, MD, FACC, and representatives from Academy Health, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Kaiser Permanente, and Research!America – Dzau received a formal welcome to a position he had officially assumed two months prior: President of the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

Succeeding Harvey Fineberg, MD, PhD, who served the position for the last 12 years, Dzau said in a statement from the IOM, “I am humbled and honored to be selected to lead the IOM at a time of unprecedented opportunities and challenges in health, health care and biomedical sciences. Harvey Fineberg has been an exceptional leader of the IOM, and I am committed to building on his outstanding work and advancing the impact of the IOM on the nation and globally.”

Regarded as pioneer in translational research, Dzau is responsible for laying the foundation for the development of angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors, used globally to treat high blood pressure and congestive heart failure. Dzau is also known for innovating gene therapy for vascular disease and was the first to introduce DNA decoy molecules to block transcriptions as gene therapy in humans.

Before taking on the role of the IOM’s president, Dzau served as the chancellor for health affairs at Duke University, the president and chief executive officer for Duke University Health System, and James B. Duke Professor of Medicine, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute, Duke Global Health Institute, the Duke Institute for Health Innovation, and the Duke-NUS Medical School in his birthplace of Singapore. Prior to his tenure at Duke he was the Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, chair of the department of medicine and director of research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Arthur Bloomfield Professor and chair of the department of medicine at Stanford University. Dzau has been a member of the ACC since 1983.

“I am delighted to welcome Victor Dzau as my successor,” said Fineberg in a statement to the IOM. “He has already contributed a great deal to the IOM – and was a great personal help to me – as a member of the IOM Council from 2008 through 2013. As a physician-scientist and leader in academic medicine, Victor has consistently demonstrated inspirational leadership, innovative thinking, and multifaceted achievement. Now, all of us at the IOM, both members and staff, will benefit more fully from his leadership.”

Keywords: Cardiology Magazine, ACC Publications

< Back to Listings