12 Facts About Paul Ridker

Paul M Ridker was born on 1959 and is a cardiovascular epidemiologist and biomedical researcher.

Paul Ridker is currently the Eugene Braunwald Professor of Medicine at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he directs the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention.

Paul Ridker's research has provided proof-of-principle for the inflammation hypothesis of atherosclerosis, the first FDA approved diagnostic test for vascular inflammation, and the first proven anti-inflammatory treatment for coronary artery disease.

Paul Ridker is among the most cited researchers in cardiovascular medicine in the world and has an H-index above 220.

Paul Ridker attended Brown University for his undergraduate studies, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1981.

Paul Ridker attended Harvard Medical School, where he received his MD in 1986; Ridker completed his residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital and West Roxbury VA Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

Paul Ridker is best known for his work developing inflammatory biomarkers and his clinical trials defining anti-inflammatory treatments for cardiovascular disease.

In 1997, Paul Ridker showed that elevated levels of hsCRP and interleukin-6 in healthy individuals were a major risk marker for future heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and cardiovascular death, independent of traditional risk factors.

Between 1998 and 2005, Paul Ridker showed that individuals with elevated hsCRP but low levels of cholesterol were at substantial risk and that statin drugs used to lower cholesterol lowered hsCRP and thus had important anti-inflammatory properties.

Toward this end, in 2010, Paul Ridker obtained parallel funding from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and from the pharmaceutical industry to design and conduct two multi-national cardiovascular inflammation reduction trials known as CANTOS and CIRT.

Ongoing work from Paul Ridker's group is testing whether direct targeting of Interleukin-6 itself can improve cardiovascular outcomes.

Paul Ridker's work has had wide biologic implications beyond atherosclerosis and heart disease.