LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Roberto Bolli, M.D., chief of the University of Louisville’s Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, will receive the 2015 Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Prize in Cardiovascular Sciences from the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Heart and Vascular Center. The Schottenstein Prize is among the largest monetary prizes in the United States dedicated to cardiovascular research.
“We congratulate Roberto for achieving this award. He is such a scientist,” said Thomas Ryan, M.D., director of the Ohio State Heart and Vascular Center. “His work on heart muscle protection and regeneration has greatly increased our understanding of the cellular changes that occur during a heart attack and how to minimize and repair the damage that results.”
The Schottenstein Prize was established in 2008 with a $2 million gift from Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein for an endowed fund for a biennial award. The prize goes to a physician or researcher who is an international leader in cardiovascular medicine, cardiothoracic surgery or molecular or cellular cardiology. Bolli will receive his award during a ceremony on Nov. 4 in Columbus, Ohio. The prize includes an honorarium of $100,000.
“I am deeply honored to be the recipient of this prestigious award. I would like to thank the leadership of the University of Louisville for their steadfast support of my research efforts over the past 20 years and all of the members of our research team for their outstanding work and dedication, which have made this recognition possible. The Schottenstein Prize recognizes all of them,” Bolli said. “This award will further strengthen our resolve to advance the research agenda of the University of Louisville, focusing on pioneering studies of new therapies such as the use of adult stem cells to regenerate heart muscle in patients with heart failure and to improve blood flow in patients with peripheral arterial disease.”
Bolli is the Jewish Hospital Heart & Lung Institute Distinguished Chair in Cardiology and serves as director of UofL’s Institute of Molecular Cardiology, scientific director of the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute and executive vice chair in the Department of Medicine. He has conducted research on preventing damage caused during heart attacks by studying ischemic preconditioning, the phenomenon in which heart muscle exposed to brief periods of stress becomes resistant to the tissue death that might be caused by a heart attack.
Previous biennial Schottenstein Prize winners include Garret FitzGerald, M.D., the McNeil Professor in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Christine Seidman, M.D., professor in the Departments of Medicine and Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Pascal Goldschmidt, M.D., the senior vice president for medical affairs and dean at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.