Gerd Heusch - Biography#

Professor Dr.med. Dr.h.c. Gerd Heusch, FACC, FESC, FRCP

Born 1955 in Bonn, Germany, Gerd Heusch studied medicine at the Universities of Düsseldorf and Bonn (MD in 1980). From 1980 to 1985 he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiology at the University of Düsseldorf (PhD in 1985). He then was research cardiologist at the University of California, San Diego under Dr. John Ross Jr. After his return to Düsseldorf he was awarded a Heisenberg scholarship by the German Research Foundation and worked in the Departments of Physiology and Cardiology (Prof. Franz Loogen). In 1989 he was appointed professor and chair of the Institute for Pathophysiology at the University of Essen, a position which he holds up to now. From 1999 to 2000 he spent a sabbatical in the Department of Physiology at the University of Southern Alabama, Mobile with Dr. Jim Downey, and he is adjunct professor there since. Gerd Heusch´s major research interests are the control of coronary blood flow, myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury and cardioprotective strategies. He has been president of the German Cardiac Society and of the European Section of the International Society for Heart Research. He has been awarded the William Harvey Lecture and Silver Medal of the European Society of Cardiology, the Carl Ludwig award of the German Cardiac Society and the Carl Wiggers award of the American Physiological Society. He is editor of Basic Research in Cardiology since 1992 and served as editorial board member of other prestigious journals.