The UAB awards an honorary doctorate to cardiologist Jagat Narula
26/07/2017
Professor Narula was awarded an honorary doctorate after being nominated for the award by the Faculty of Medicine, in a ceremony presided by UAB Rector Margarita Arboix. The UAB's newest honorary doctor was presented by Dr Ignasi Carrió, professor of the UAB Department of Medicine.
Jagat Narula (Ajmer, India 1956) is one of the world's leading experts in the field of cardiovascular sciences and specifically in the field of cardiovascular imaging technologies. His main contributions in the field include the description of heart muscle cell death in heart failure and the identification of arteriosclerosis plaques which are likely to cause acute heart attacks.
He is also an outstanding scientist thanks to his great ability to transfer his research from the lab to the clinic, developing prevention strategies for cardiovascular diseases and promoting healthy habits in this area, both in developed and in middle and low income countries.
Dr Narula currently works at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where he is Professor of Medicine and holds the Philip J. and Harriet L. Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine; he is also Director of the Cardiovascular Imaging Program at the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute, and of the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Cardiovascular Health, as well as Associate Dean for Global Health at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
He has developed his teaching, medical and scientific career almost completely in the United States, where he moved to in 1989 once he completed his PhD in Cardiovascular Immunology from the All India Institute of Medical Science in Delhi. He specialised in Cardiology, Heart Failure, Transplants and Nuclear Cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and he later directed several specialised centres such as the Heart Failure & Transplantation Centre at the University of Philadelphia, the Cardiovascular Center at the UC Irvine’s Douglas Hospital.
More Than a Thousand Papers
Dr Jagat Narula has published over a thousand papers in the top basic and clinical research journals: Science, Nature Medicine, PNAS, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Circulation and JACC. He has also published over 35 books. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging and of the Global Heart (The Official Journal of World Heart Federation).
With regard to prevention and promotion of cardiovascular health, Dr Narula is working on several programmes such as the Heart Attack Prevention Program for You (HAPPY), and is also member of the Advisory Board at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences.
Professor Narula has received a number of distinctions throughout his career. He received the young researcher award in numerous occasions and was chosen to present the 2014 Mario Verani Lecture of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC); he was also awarded the Agatston Award 2016 by the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT). Among the different distinctions he has received are the Gifted Educator and Innovator of Cardiovascular Medicine (2012) and the Distinguished Scientist Award (2015) from the American College of Cardiology (ACC).