Professor Receives Louis and Artur Award for Hypertension Research.

Vasan Ramachandran, professor of epidemiology, has been selected as the 2021 recipient of the Louis and Artur Lucian Award, an honor bestowed annually to one researcher from around the world who has made outstanding contributions to the field of circulatory diseases.

Ramachandran, who is also the Jay and Louise Coffman Professor in Vascular Medicine at the School of Medicine (MED), and principal investigator and director of the Framingham Heart Study, was recognized for his findings that hypertension poses cardiovascular risks. His work has led to a lowered threshold for what constitutes high blood pressure in the US, shed light on the progression of borderline to high blood pressure, and provided guidance on blood pressure screening in primary care.

“Dr. Ramachandran is one of the most influential cardiovascular epidemiologists in the world, and the Lucian Prize would be fitting recognition of his singular contributions to cardiovascular science,” wrote Thomas Wang, Donald W. Seldin Distinguished Chair in Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, in his nomination letter. “In particular, Dr. Ramachandran’s achievements in the field of hypertension have had an undeniable impact on clinical practice and cardiovascular health.”

Ramachandran joined the faculty in the Department of Epidemiology at SPH in 2013. He has taught as an associate professor of medicine at MED since 1998, and was promoted to professor in 2006. In addition to his role as principal investigator and director of FHS, with which he has been affiliated for the past 19 years, Ramachandran serves as chief of the section of preventive medicine and epidemiology in the Department of Medicine, and principal investigator and founder of the Risk Underlying Rural Areas Longitudinal (RURAL) cohort study. He was the founding Editor of Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics.

He received his medical degree from, and completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in cardiology at, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India. He has received many RO1 awards, as well as a mid-career clinical investigator award from the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute.

Over the last 25 years, Ramachandran has made major contributions to the genetic and non-genetic epidemiology of congestive heart failure; population-based vascular testing, echocardiography and exercise testing; the genetic and non-genetic epidemiology of high blood pressure; and cardiovascular disease risk prediction models.

The Louis and Artur Lucian Award, which includes a cash award of $60,000, was established in 1978 through a bequest to McGill University under the will of the late Olga Leibovici in memory of her two brothers.

One goal of the award is to increase collaborative research between McGill and research centers elsewhere in Canada, the United States and other countries. Ramachandran will give a formal Lucian Lecture at McGill University and meet with members of the McGill community in the spring 2022, as well as begin a research collaboration with McGill investigators working in the field of circulatory diseases.