NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 9, 2008  — The American Heart Association today awarded its 2008 Basic Research Prize to David A. Kass, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, for “uniquely elegant studies at the molecular and cellular levels that were skillfully advanced in clinical research to give new insights into underlying causes of cardiac diseases and how to treat them.”

Dr. Kass is among a handful of the world’s leading cardiovascular scientists whose work truly embodies the notion of translational research, Association President Timothy J. Gardner said in presenting the $5,000 prize. The presentation came at the opening of the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2008 at the New Orleans convention center.

“Over the past 20 years, Dr. Kass has carried out pioneering basic research studies spanning a wide range of topics, including cardiac mechanics, arterial stiffening, endothelial signaling, cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure,” Dr. Gardner said. These findings alone merit praise for their importance in advancing basic science, he said, but Dr. Kass integrated his discoveries into studies in animals and humans, “arriving at new, clinically relevant understandings of disease mechanisms.”

Among the scientist’s recent findings is the surprising revelation that sildenafil, a drug widely prescribed for erectile dysfunction, can potentially benefit the heart, Dr. Gardner noted. In a study performed in mice, Dr. Kass’s laboratory showed that sildenafil blunted and even reversed left-heart hypertrophy and dysfunction induced by high blood pressure. The finding provided the impetus for a multi-center clinical trial testing the drug in patients with a form of heart failure.

Dr. Kass, Abraham and Virginia Weiss Professor of Cardiology and professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins, began his interest in research as an undergraduate at Harvard University. After medical training at Yale University, George Washington University Medical Center and Johns Hopkins, he joined the Hopkins cardiology faculty in 1986.

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NR08-1145 (SS08/Kass)