University of Michigan’s Dr. Katherine Gallagher to receive the 2024 Joseph A. Vita Award

American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2024

Embargoed until 7 a.m. CT/8 a.m. ET, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024

DALLAS, Nov. 6, 2024 - Katherine A. Gallagher, M.D., FAHA, the Leland Ira Doan Research Professor of Surgery and vice chair of basic and translational science at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will be awarded the 2024 Joseph A. Vita Award at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2024. The meeting, Nov. 16-18, 2024, in Chicago, is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science. Dr. Gallagher will be presented with this award during the opening session on Saturday, Nov. 16.

Named after late cardiovascular scientist Joseph A. Vita, M.D., this award is given annually to a scientist whose research has had a major impact on the field of cardiovascular biology or cardiovascular health during the past five years, and whose work has been published in the journals of the Association. Dr. Vita was the founding editor of the Association's open access, peer-reviewed, Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA). The award recipient is selected by the editors-in-chief of the Association's 14 peer-reviewed scientific journals and celebrates the work that transforms or changes the direction of cardiovascular research.

"Dr. Katherine Gallagher is an exceptional physician-scientist whose research is helping to close the gap between lab science and human disease," said Keith Churchwell, M.D., FAHA, American Heart Association 2024-2025 volunteer president, associate clinical professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and adjunct associate professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. "Regarded as an expert in the molecular pathogenesis of tissue regeneration and epigenetic alterations of immune cells, Katherine's research to uncover and harness knowledge around the types of inflammation that help the body heal in the wake of disease is invaluable to physicians and helps them creates more effective treatment plans that can lead to improved care and disease management for patients."

Dr. Gallagher's research is focused on vascular inflammation and the intersection of epigenetic-based cell changes that control gene expression. As the head of the Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Cardiovascular Diseases and Tissue Regeneration Lab (IECT) at the University of Michigan, her group is focused on discovering the roles of epigenetic alterations in immune cells and how this promotes inflammation during disease progression. Under her leadership, her group is working to better understand what influences immune cell response at the cellular level, with the hope this knowledge will be used to develop targeted approaches to the management of cardiovascular and cardiometabolic diseases in order to improve outcomes for people living with these chronic inflammatory conditions.

"I am humbled and deeply honored to receive this award from the Association," said Dr. Gallagher. "I, of course, am really excited about the research coming out of my lab, but to know that other physicians and scientists are interested in my lab's work gives me a deep sense of gratitude for the type of idea sharing and encouragement the Association fosters. We can all continue to build upon each other to advance the science with our common goal to improve medical care for our cardiovascular patients."

Dr. Gallagher is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, American Society of Clinical Investigation, James IV International Association, the American Surgical Association, and the National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Wound Consortium, as well as the current chair of the NIH Bioengineering Technology and Surgical Sciences study section. She is a mentor to many junior faculty, post-graduate and graduate students, residents, medical students and undergraduate research trainees. Many of her mentees have gone on to obtain NIH funding as well as foundation funding from the American Heart Association.

Dr. Gallagher earned a bachelor's degree in physiology and neurobiology from the University of Maryland and a medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She completed a general surgery residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center, a fellowship in vascular surgery at Columbia/Cornell Medical Center and a post-doctoral research fellowship in angiogenesis in tissue repair at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a Howard Hughes Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where her work focused on the molecular mechanisms of structural cells. She has maintained continuous NIH funding of her laboratory at the University of Michigan since 2014.

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