Cleveland Clinic to establish chair for preventive cardiology from Cleveland Foundation

Thursday, September 29, 2011, Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic has received a $750,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation to establish the Leonard Krieger Chair in Preventive Cardiology.

Stanley Hazen, M.D., Ph.D., will be the first to hold the chair. Dr. Hazen's research spans a broad range of topics, from researching the mechanisms involved in the development of cardiovascular disease to identifying non-invasive testing for asthma. Recently, he published a paper in Nature on gut flora as a participant and therapeutic target in cardiovascular disease.

"I am grateful for the generosity of the Cleveland Foundation," Dr. Hazen said. "This gift will provide resources to advance our research efforts, by serving as a catalyst for cutting-edge research programs. We will focus on development of an inhibitor of a recently discovered gut flora pathway as a new therapy for the treatment of atherosclerosis."

Established in 1914, the Cleveland Foundation is the world's first community foundation and the nation's second-largest today, with assets of $1.9 billion and 2010 grants of nearly $87 million. The foundation seeks to address vital community issues -- including economic development, education, housing, human services and the arts -- through leadership and grant-making.

Dr. Hazen is currently the Head of the Section for Preventive Cardiology and Rehabilitation, Director for the Center for Cardiovascular Diagnostics and Prevention, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Mass Spectrometry Core Facilities and the Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. He is also the Vice-Chair of Translational Research for the Lerner Research Institute of Cleveland Clinic.

Provided by Lerner Research Institute