Physician and science investigator Edward Kasper, an
expert in chronic heart failure and the
heart transplantation that often results from the disease,
has been named clinical director of the
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's
Division of
Cardiology and co-director of the school's
Heart and Vascular Institute.
Kasper, a Johns Hopkins alumnus, has spent nearly his
entire academic medical career at the
institution, where he also completed his medical
internship; residency, including one year supervising
20 other house officers as one of four acting chiefs of
service; and cardiology fellowship.
Since 1987, Kasper has taught medical students,
clinical residents and research fellows and
treated thousands of patients at Johns Hopkins. He succeeds
Richard Lange, who led clinical
operations in the division since 2003 and will remain
active as adjunct faculty. He also succeeds Lange
as the E. Cowles Andrus Professor of Cardiology.
In addition to managing day-to-day clinical cardiology
operations, Kasper will continue his
research into the biological origins of heart failure and
the underlying reasons why the body rejects
some transplanted hearts and not others.
"Dr. Kasper has already established a successful track
record, expanding and upgrading our
cardiology practice at Johns Hopkins
Bayview Medical Center to the world-class level of
excellence
that people have come to expect from Johns Hopkins," said
Gordon Tomaselli, the newly appointed
director of Cardiology. "Now he can put this expertise to
good use, advancing cardiology service
standards across all other hospitals and clinics within
Hopkins' health system," said Tomaselli, who is
the Michel Mirowski, M.D., Professor of Cardiology at the
School of Medicine and also a co-director of
its Heart and Vascular Institute.
Kasper has authored more than 70 articles, two books
and many book chapters on various
aspects of heart failure and transplantation. Most
recently, he has researched potential blood tests
for predicting the earliest signs of heart failure and an
organ recipient's risk of rejecting a heart
transplant.
For the last five years, Kasper served as director of
the Cardiology Division at Bayview, the
second-largest hospital in the Johns Hopkins Health System.
There, he led a growing team of more
than 20 cardiologists and 100 clinical and research staff
in establishing medical services that
complement and replicate those available at Johns Hopkins'
main medical campus. Under Kasper's
leadership, the number of faculty and staff nearly tripled,
and patient numbers more than doubled.
As clinical head of the Division of Cardiology, Kasper
will oversee a group of 713 people,
including 102 faculty and 87 fellows, who treat more than
4,000 inpatients and nearly 30,000 more
outpatients a year.
The division Kasper inherits with Tomaselli has earned
national and international acclaim and has
been consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report
among the top four in cardiology among
American academic medical centers.
Kasper studied the natural sciences as an
undergraduate at Johns Hopkins before earning his
medical degree in 1984 from the University of Connecticut
and completing his medical training at The
Johns Hopkins Hospital. He joined the faculty in 1987 as an
instructor in medicine and completed his
specialization in cardiology in 1991. Kasper then moved to
Vanderbilt University to oversee its
transplant program but quickly returned to Johns Hopkins in
1993 to head up the same service.
He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology
and served on its board of governors from
2002 to 2006. In addition, he is a fellow of the American
Heart Association and has served since
2006 on its clinical cardiology committee. He is also a
long-standing member of numerous societies
dedicated to improving the lives of heart transplant
recipients and those awaiting a donated organ,
including the International Society for Heart and Lung
Transplantation, the United Network for
Organ Sharing, the Heart Failure Society of America and the
Working Group of Transplant
Cardiologists.
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