Ruth L. Kirschstein Institutional Research Training Program (T32)
This NIH-funded, post-doctoral training program was established in 1974 by Dr. Myron Weisfeldt and has run continuously for the past 42 years. The Johns Hopkins T32 in Cardiovascular Medicine has trained hundreds of scientists, including those with MDs, PhDs, and both, and many are now leaders in their fields. Our program is unusual in that it takes a very broad approach to cardiovascular research, integrating basic science with whole animal translational studies, human pathophysiology and clinical studies, and large population-based studies including epidemiology, genetics, health care delivery and policy. Trainees are provided broad flexibility in the areas of research they wish to pursue, and our faculty includes an outstanding cross-section of the Division of Cardiology, as well as other Divisions in the Department of Medicine, Departments in the School of Medicine, and in the greater Johns Hopkins University. Our faculty are united by their excellence in cardiovascular research and proven dedication to training the next generation of cardiovascular researchers.
David Kass, M.D. directed the program for the past 20 years and is now joined by Wendy Post, M.D., M.S. This brings together two research leaders in the Johns Hopkins Division of Cardiology whose varied backgrounds in both scientific expertise and mentoring experience span all of the facets represented by our program.
In This Section:
About the Directors
David A. Kass, M.D.
David A. Kass, M.D. is the Abraham and Virginia Weiss Professor of Cardiology, and Professor of Medicine, Biomedical Engineering, Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, and Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, and directs the Institute of CardioScience. He earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Applied Physics and Engineering from Harvard College and M.D. from Yale University.
He is a long-time member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, American Association of Physicians, and Fellow of the American Heart Association, International Society of Heart Research, and American Physiological Society. He is a consulting editor for Circulation Research and American Journal of Physiology-Heart, and recipient of the American Heart Association’s Basic Science Award and inaugural Melvin Marcus Award among others, and Johns Hopkins Professor's Award for Distinction in Teaching and David Levine Mentorship Award. He has published over 400 papers garnering nearly 47,000 citations with an H-index of 111.
His lab is funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, and numerous other sources. He has mentored nearly 90 fellows and students, many now playing leadership roles in academic cardiovascular medicine and/or developing such careers. His research is highly translational and focuses on elucidating novel mechanisms of heart muscle disease and developing new therapies to treat it. He pioneered clinical development of ventricular cardiac resynchronization, and his landmark work on phosphodiesterase type 5 and type 9 inhibitors revealed their role as therapeutic targets for treating heart disease. He has developed many analytical methods to assess cardiac and large artery function, playing a major role in advancing studies of vascular aging and forms of heart disease in the elderly. In addition to his academic research efforts, he has co-founded several companies, including Robin Medical Inc. – which manufactures MRI-based position/motion sensing technology, and Cardioxyl Inc. which developed nitoxyl donors for heart failure therapy. Cardioxyl developed a new heart failure drug through to Phase II clinical trials, and was sold to Bristol Meyers Squibb in 2015 for ongoing development.
Wendy Post, M.D., M.S.
Wendy Post, M.D., M.S. is professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and holds a joint appointment as professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Post is a cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease and the Echocardiography Laboratory. She is also associate faculty at the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research at Johns Hopkins University. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from Harvard University. She earned her medical degree from Columbia College of Surgeons and Physicians, Columbia University.
After completing her internship and residency at Harvard Medical School’s Beth Israel Hospital, Dr. Post received her master’s degree in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She was a research fellow at the Framingham Heart Study and a fellow in cardiology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Post joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1997. Dr. Post’s research interests include prediction and prevention of coronary heart disease and sudden cardiac death, noninvasive imaging of subclinical atherosclerosis, genetics of cardiovascular disease, and cardiovascular disease in HIV/AIDS.
She is the principal investigator for the Hopkins field center for the NIH-funded Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) and for the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) cardiovascular disease substudy. Currently, Dr. Post is PI for two R01 grants from NHLBI investigating cardiovascular disease in HIV. She is an Associate Editor for Circulation, and has ~200 peer-reviewed research publications. Dr. Post mentors multiple medical students, medical house staff, fellows and junior faculty. She is also a member of the Hopkins Professorial Promotions Committee and is the Director of Research for the Hopkins Cardiovascular Fellowship Training Program. Dr. Post was elected as a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2015.
Major Research Themes
Basic Science Investigations:
Major themes include: myocardial disease – hypertrophy and heart failure mechanisms with a focus on cyclic nucleotide signaling and regulation, signal transduction and novel therapeutics; electrophysiology and calcium homeostasis, with a focus on calcium-calmodulin activated kinase, developmental and stem cell biology, mitochondrial function, oxidative stress and myocardial energetics, sarcomere dynamics and mutations, fly genetics and models of heart disease, ischemia and ischemia-reperfusion injury, genetics of cardiomyopathy, mechanosensing and muscular dystrophy, glycobiology and diabetes/cardiovascular pathobiology, and connective tissue disorders.
Clinical Investigations:
Major themes are: heart failure therapeutics and diagnostics, treatment of amyloid, heart failure with a preserved ejection fraction, right heart failure and pulmonary hypertension, optimizing ventricular assist devices, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, advanced cardiac imaging – including echoDoppler cardiography, magnetic resonance and computerized tomography; new methods to assess coronary endothelial function and clinical trials testing drugs to improve it, right ventricular cardiomyopathy, predictors of sudden death, cardiovascular disease in HIV, genetic determinants of cardiovascular disease, painless defibrillation, mechanisms and management of cardiac arrest, and large-population based studies examining novel predictors of cardiovascular risk and developing effective and novel risk prevention strategies.
Our Faculty
| Name | Primary (& Secondary) Appointments | Role in Program |
|---|---|---|
| David Alan Kass, M.D. | Cardiology | Program Director |
| Wendy Susan Post, M.D., M.S. | Cardiology | Program Director |
| Mark Edward Anderson, M.D., Ph.D. | Department of Medicine (Department of Physiology) | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Lawrence J. Appel, M.D., M.P.H. | Epidemiology and International Health | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Todd Tarquin Brown, M.D., Ph.D. | Endocrinology, Epidemiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Hugh Calkins, M.D. | Cardiology, Pediatric Cardiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Anthony Ross Cammarato, Ph.D. | Cardiology, Physiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Josef Coresh, M.D., Ph.D. | Epidemiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Harry C Dietz, III, M.D. | Ins. Genetic Medicine, Molecular Biology and Genetics | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Gary Gerstenblith, J.D., M.D. | Cardiology, Radiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Sherita Hill Golden, M.D., M.H.S. | Endocrinology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Eliseo Guallar, M.D., M.P.H. | Epidemiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Henry Halperin, M.D. | Cardiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Rani Khalil Hasan, M.D. | Cardiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Paul M Hassoun, M.D. | Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Roger Anthony Johns, M.D. | Anesthesiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Chulan Kwon, M.S., Ph.D. | Cardiology, Institute for Cell Engineering | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Joao A C Lima, M.B.A., M.D. | Cardiology, Radiology & Epidemiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Anne Margaret Murphy, M.D. | Pediatrics | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Brian O'Rourke, Ph.D. | Cardiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Elizabeth Selvin, M.P.H., Ph.D. | Epidemiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Gregg L. Semenza, M.D., Ph.D. | Inst. Genetic Medicine, Pediatrics, Inst. of Cell Engineering, Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Biological Chemistry | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Charles Steenbergen, Jr, M.D., Ph.D. | Pathology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Kerry J. Stewart, Ed.D. | Cardiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Natalia A. Trayanova, M.S., Ph.D. | Biomedical Engineering | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Leslie Tung, Ph.D. | Biomedical Engineering | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Jeremy David Walston, M.D. | Geriatric Medicine | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Robert George Weiss, M.D. | Cardiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Raimond L. Winslow, Ph.D. | Biomedical Engineering | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Katherine Chih-Ching Wu, M.D. | Cardiology | Core Faculty Mentor |
| Michael Joseph Blaha, M.D., M.P.H. | Cardiology | Junior Mentor |
| Allen Ray Sing Chen, M.D., M.H.S., Ph.D. | Cardiology, Pediatrics | Junior Mentor |
| Oscar Cingolani, M.D. | Cardiology | Junior Mentor |
| D. Brian Foster, M.Sc., Ph.D. | Cardiology | Junior Mentor |
| Allison Hays, M.D. | Cardiology | Junior Mentor |
| Chao-Wei Hwang, M.D. | Cardiology, Biomedical Engineering | Junior Mentor |
| Peter VanDoren Johnston, M.D. | Cardiology | Junior Mentor |
| Aravindan Kolandaivelu, M.D. | Cardiology | Junior Mentor |
| Chiadi Ericson Ndumele, M.D., M.H.S., Ph.D. | Cardiology | Junior Mentor |
| Armin Arbab-Zadeh, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D. | Cardiology | Junior Mentor |
| Dan Eytan Arking, Ph.D. | Inst. Genetic Medicine | Associate |
| Ronald David Berger, M.D., Ph.D. | Cardiology | Associate |
| Roger Scott Blumenthal, M.D. | Cardiology | Associate |
| Steven Richard Jones, M.D. | Cardiology | Associate |
| Erin Donnelly Michos, M.D., M.H.S. | Cardiology | Associate |
| Pamela Ouyang, M.B.B.S., M.D. | Cardiology | Associate |
| Jon Rodney Resar, M.D. | Cardiology | Associate |
How to Apply
Fellows interested in training in this T32-program should:
- Email David Kass, M.D. or Wendy Post, M.D.,M.S.
- Provide a full biosketch-CV, list at least three individuals who can provide letters of recommendation.
- Provide a cover letter describing your background, interests, current position, and goals in cardiovascular research.
- Provide assurance of your naturalization status. NIH sponsorship requires individuals be either a naturalized U.S. citizen, or a permanent resident (green card). Individuals on J1, H1B, or other foreign visas are not eligible.
For external applicants, our Advisory board committee will review all applications, and invite those felt competitive for a position for an interview. This will involve a full day, where the individual will present a seminar describing their prior doctoral or other research experience and work, meet with several members of the faculty, tour the facilities and meet with other fellows. Following this, we will again convene and appointment decisions will be made and communicated to the fellow.