Paul Ridker

Dr. Paul M Ridker, MD, MPH serves as the Eugene Braunwald Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and as Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston Massachusetts USA. Over a 30-year period, Dr. Ridker and his collaborators provided the first proof-of-principle for the inflammation hypothesis of atherothrombosis in humans; the first demonstration that statin therapy is both lipid-lowering and anti-inflammatory; the first FDA-approved diagnostic test for vascular inflammation (hsCRP); the first proven anti-inflammatory treatment for heart disease (canakinumab); and brought into clinical practice worldwide the concept of “residual inflammatory risk”. On multiple occasions Dr. Ridker’s work has altered clinical guidelines for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of atherosclerotic disease. As a consequence of this work, multiple novel anti-inflammatory agents targeting interrelated aspects of heart disease ranging from chronic atherosclerosis to acute ischemia to congestive heart failure are under development at major pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Dr. Ridker’s work has thus catalyzed the first new target for atherothrombosis in 40 years that is not related to cholesterol, blood pressure, or coagulation. Dr. Ridker is additionally known internationally for his leadership of 15 major randomized clinical trials including PREVENT, JUPITER, SPIRE-1, SPIRE-2, CANTOS, CIRT, PROMINENT, ZEUS, and HERMES. The recipient of multiple honorary degrees and international awards, Dr. Ridker is a Distinguished Scientist of the American Heart Association and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. With an h-index in 2022 of 261 and with over 300,000 cumulative citations, Dr. Ridker is among the top 15 most-cited biomedical researchers worldwide.