Peter Libby

Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Peter Libby, MD, a cardiovascular specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, holds the Mallinckrodt Professorship of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He directed Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital from 1998 to 2014. His areas of clinical expertise include general and preventive cardiology. His current major research focus is the role of inflammation in vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. Prof. Libby has a particular devotion to clinical translation. He instigated and helped to lead the large scale Canakinumab Anti-Inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Trial that provided clinical validation of the role of inflammation in atherosclerosis.

Prof. Libby has received numerous research awards, including the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the Gold Medal of the European Society of Cardiology, the Basic Research Prize of the American Heart Association, the Anitschkow Prize in Atherosclerosis Research of the European Atherosclerosis Society, the Ernst Jung Gold Medal for Medicine, and the Benditt Award from the North American Vascular Biology Organization.

Prof. Libby’s professional memberships include the Association of American Physicians, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and honorary memberships in the British Atherosclerosis Society, the Japan Circulation Society, and the Japanese College of Cardiology. He has served as the president of the Association of University Cardiologists. He also has served as a volunteer for the American Heart Association, including chairman of several research committees and member of executive committees. Prof. Libby presided the ACC’s Research Peer Review Committee for two terms. He has frequently consulted for the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), including membership on the Board of Scientific Councillors. He directed the DW Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center and two cycles of Leducq Foundation Awards and has received continuous funding from the NHLBI for several decades.  He currently serves as the president of the International Atherosclerosis Society.

As an author and lecturer on cardiovascular medicine and atherosclerosis, Prof. Libby has published extensively in medical journals including Circulation, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature. He is an editor of Braunwald’s Heart Disease and was the editor-in-chief of the current 12th edition. Prof. Libby has also contributed chapters on the pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention of atherosclerosis to many editions of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. He has held numerous visiting professorships and delivered more than 150 major named or keynote lectures throughout the world.

Prof. Libby earned his medical degree at the University of California, San Diego, and completed his training in internal medicine and cardiology at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s Hospital). He also holds an honorary MA degree from Harvard University, and three honorary doctorates.

Paul M Ridker

Brigham and Women's Hospital Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Paul M. Ridker serves as the Eugene Braunwald Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and as director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Over a 30-year period, Dr. Ridker and his collaborators provided the first proof-of-principle for the inflammation hypothesis of atherothrombosis in humans, the first FDA-approved diagnostic test for vascular inflammation (hsCRP), and the first proven anti-inflammatory treatment for heart disease. He is also known internationally for his leadership of over 15 major multi-national randomised clinical trials including PREVENT, JUPITER, SPIRE, CANTOS, CIRT, PROMINENT, and ZEUS. The recipient of multiple honorary degrees and international awards, Dr. Ridker is a Distinguished Scientist of the American Heart Association and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was asked by the US government and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to lead the ACTIV-4B Outpatient COVID-19 Thrombosis Prevention Trial.

Dr. Ridker earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School in 1985, and his MPH degree at Harvard School of Public Health in 1990.