Formally trained in cardiovascular medicine and epidemiology, Dr. Paul M Ridker is the Eugene Braunwald Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and directs the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, a translational research unit at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.  Dr. Ridker’s research focuses on the design and conduct of multi-national randomized trials, the development of inflammatory biomarkers for clinical and research use, the molecular and genetic epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases, and on novel strategies for cardiovascular disease detection and prevention. As a preventive cardiologist, Dr. Ridker is best known for his work developing the inflammatory hypothesis of heart disease, the clinical application of high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) testing as a method to better evaluate cardiovascular risk, and the demonstration in 2008 in the large-scale JUPITER trial that statin therapy is highly effective at reducing heart attack and stroke when given to men and women with elevated hsCRP levels.

Dr. Ridker is a graduate of Brown University, the Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and has received honorary medical degrees from several international institutions.  Dr. Ridker’s primary research brings together classical tools of large-scale, population based epidemiology with emerging genetic and molecular techniques designed to improve our ability to predict and prevent vascular disease. Particular areas of interest involve inflammatory mechanisms of heart disease and molecular and genetic determinants of hemostasis, thrombosis, and inflammation with a focus on “predictive medicine”, early disease diagnosis, and the underlying causes and prevention of acute coronary syndromes. Dr. Ridker’s research efforts have been supported by multiple RO1 research grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (New York), and through philanthropic research grants from the Leducq Foundation (Paris FR), and the Donald W Reynolds Foundation (Las Vegas, NV).  Dr. Ridker currently serves on the Board of External Experts for the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.

Dr. Ridker's events included a Scholar's Tea and Career Development talk "Conducting Clinical Trials" for early career junior investigators, fellows and trainees, a Cardiology Case Studies Conference, and a Medicine Grand Rounds program.  *These events are made possible by a generous gift from Martin Bloomfield, MD, '60 to the Cardiovascular Research Institute of Vermont.