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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Brooke Tyson Hynes
February 12, 2008 617-636-0205
Internationally Renowned Physician-Scientist, Michael E. Mendelsohn, MD,
Appointed Chief Scientific Officer
at Tufts Medical Center
Boston, MA-- Tufts Medical Center announced today that Michael E. Mendelsohn, M.D. will lead the organization’s research endeavors as Chief Scientific Officer. Mendelsohn, a cardiologist, directs Tufts Medical Center’s Molecular Cardiology Research Institute, which he founded 10 years ago, and is renowned for his ground-breaking research concerning both estrogen and cardiovascular disease and the molecular regulation of blood vessel function and blood pressure.
“Mike has been an exceptional and dedicated leader and researcher at Tufts Medical Center and Tufts University School of Medicine for more than a decade,” said Ellen Zane, president and chief executive officer. “We are thrilled that he has accepted this new position and will use his talents to further elevate Tufts Medical Center’s research enterprise and international reputation.”
Tufts Medical Center is among the top 10 independent hospitals in the nation receiving National Institutes of Health funding and is recognized for its significant contributions to the health sciences. Mendelsohn will be charged with advancing the Medical Center’s research programs broadly, including in the areas of cancer, cardiology, pediatrics, genetics, neurosciences, psychiatry, transplantation/immunology and several others.
“Tufts Medical Center is a world leader in basic, clinical and translational research,” Mendelsohn said. “I am excited to work to strengthen our current environment by providing our research community with the support needed to advance and grow our existing programs, to create new, broad-based, multidisciplinary programs, and to recruit a new generation of cutting-edge investigators to Tufts who will further establish us as a leader in all aspects of research for our society’s major health challenges.”
Mendelsohn will spearhead major recruitment efforts and the development of additional new multidisciplinary programs that bring together the talents and research of diverse Medical Center and Medical School departments.
“Tufts Medical Center and Tufts University School of Medicine have long benefited from a unique and special collaborative spirit among departments and between the Medical Center and the University,” said Tufts University School of Medicine Dean Michael Rosenblatt. “With Mike as the new CSO, I am certain that this collaboration will be taken to an even higher level, benefiting both organizations, but, most importantly, benefiting modern medicine.”
Mendelsohn is the Elisa Kent Mendelsohn Professor of molecular cardiology and medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and has been a leading physician-scientist in basic cardiovascular research for two decades. Mendelsohn received his bachelor’s degree Magna Cum Laude from Amherst College in 1978 and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1982. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School and joined the faculty at Harvard for 5 years before he was recruited to Tufts Medical Center. He joined the Cardiology Division at Tufts Medical Center in 1993 and in 1997 became the first Director of the Medical Center’s Molecular Cardiology Research Institute, which was created to enable Tufts to build on its emerging leadership in cardiovascular medicine on national and international levels.
Mendelsohn is the principal investigator on numerous NIH awards and currently directs an $11.2 million program project grant to study molecular mechanisms regulating blood vessel tone and blood pressure. He served as chairman of the Experimental Cardiovascular Sciences Study Section of the NIH from 2000-2002, was an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association, and has received numerous awards, including the Sir William Osler Young Investigator Award of the Interurban Clinical Club, and both the Distinguished Faculty Award and the Milton O. and Natalie V. Zucker Faculty Award for Outstanding Research from Tufts University School of Medicine. He has been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the Association of University Cardiologists (AUC) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP). He is an invited speaker for the September 2008 Nobel Conference “Recent Advances in Understanding Estrogen Signaling,” and spoke previously at the Nobel Symposium in Karlskoga, Sweden in 1999.
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