“RISING STARS” IN CARDIOLOGY RESEARCH WIN BLUMENTHAL PRIZES

Johns Hopkins Medicine
Media Relations and Public Affairs
Media Contact: David March
410-955-1534; [email protected]
October 25, 2006

“RISING STARS” IN CARDIOLOGY RESEARCH WIN BLUMENTHAL PRIZES

Officials at the Johns Hopkins Heart Institute will recognize outstanding research enterprise with annual prizes named in honor of the late Hopkins physician Stanley L. Blumenthal, B.A. ’39 and M.D. ‘43.  A ceremony to award prizes for the best in cardiovascular research will be held in The Johns Hopkins Hospital Houck Lobby at 4 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 26. 

Three postdoctoral research fellows will each receive a $1,000 cash price with a commemorative plaque.  The awards are given for basic science (the biology behind cardiovascular disease), translational medicine (how best to apply new discoveries to patient care), and in clinical science (how best to improve existing therapies). 

“These awards honor the best in Hopkins cardiology, something my family is proud to support,” says cardiologist Roger S. Blumenthal, M.D., Stanley’s son, also a graduate of Hopkins (B.A. ‘81), and an associate professor and director of the Ciccarone Preventive Cardiology Center at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Recipients of the 2006 Blumenthal awards are Peter Johnston, M.D. (Basic Science Prize), for a study on stem cell therapies in pigs after heart attack; Richard T. George, M.D. (Translational Science Prize), for a study designed to improve heart imaging in patients for the early detection of coronary artery disease; and Brian G. Kral, M.D. (Clinical Science Prize), for research about the limited protective benefit from “good cholesterol” in families with a history of coronary artery disease.

All of these studies have been selected for presentation at this year’s Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association meeting in Chicago in early November.

-- JHM --