November 15, 2012

Heart Association honors Roden’s research efforts

Dan Roden, M.D., assistant vice chancellor for Personalized Medicine and William Stokes Professor of Experimental Therapeutics, received a 2012 Distinguished Scientist Award at the annual Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association (AHA) last week in Los Angeles.

Dan Roden, M.D., assistant vice chancellor for Personalized Medicine and William Stokes Professor of Experimental Therapeutics, received a 2012 Distinguished Scientist Award at the annual Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association (AHA) last week in Los Angeles.

Dan Roden, M.D.

This award honors cardiovascular investigators for extraordinary contributions to the understanding and treatment of cardiovascular disease.

Roden’s research focuses on mechanisms underlying variability in response to drug therapy. One major interest has been the relationship between mutations and polymorphisms in ion channel and other genes, and susceptibility to arrhythmias, including drug-related arrhythmias. In addition, for the last six years, he has led Vanderbilt’s broader efforts in Personalized Medicine.

Roden directs the Vanderbilt site of two NIH networks — the Pharmacogenetics Research Network and the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics Network. These efforts search for genomic variants contributing to variable drug actions in patients and examine methods to implement these in the electronic medical record environment.

Roden has received the Leon Goldberg Young Investigator Award and the Rawls Palmer Progress in Science Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and the Distinguished Scientist Award and the Douglas Zipes lectureship from the Heart Rhythm Society.